Becoming a super time manager

If fE HAVE heard "I don't have V Y time," "I just don't have enough time," "I have too much on my plate," and other similar comments.

The comments typically mean that the individual is: o Taking on too much to be effective o Living an unbalanced life o Busy, but not overly productive o Doing "things" that are unnecessary r Lacking in organization skills

I believe the first step is to invest the majority of your time on major things and minor time on minor things. In business, there are two majors to focus on: your people and your clients.

Let's start with the president. His primary focus is to ensure that the v.p.s are doing their jobs well and to determine the resources necessary to support each one of them. He must also invest enough time with them to make sure they beat (not meet) every project deadline. His time, therefore, is to keep everyone focused on productivity to grow revenues.

The big challenge I see with presidents is that an Open Door Policy becomes an invitation for anyone to barge in and needlessly chew up the president's time. When someone asks for "five minutes," they usually take 15-and then it takes five to l0 minutes to get refocused after they leave. So, that's 20 to 30 minutes that is lost. And how manv times a dav does this

By Bill Blades William Blades, LLC Gold Canyon, Az.

happen? Often, it's six to l0 times per day. Count the hours this now totals and multiply by 250 work days. It's a staggering number.

Yes, he looks efficient, but he is not being effective. Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things to begin with. Big difference here.

The v.p. of sales needs to harness her time more so than anyone else. And she needs to help her salespeople do the same. Why? The average salesperson loses three-and-a-half hours a day. The v.p. and the troops need to maintain focus on the target accounts they want to land and keep. Yet, the smaller clients often get as much time as the larger clients.

When the v.p. goes into the field, she must make sure that breakfast, lunch, dinners and client visits in between are with target accounts and not with one of the salesperson's "comfort zone" clients. And the routes taken need to be in order, not in a zig-zag manner. If the salesperson is haphazard in laying out the events ofthe day, you have two people in the car losing time.

I mentioned earlier that many salespeople lose threeand-a-half hours a day. That equals 875 hours or 22 weeks in a year. Now, does it make sense for the v.p. to be extremely focused? If the v.p. is haphazard, the salespeople will probably be also. So goes the v.p., so go the salespeople.

, Most salespeople lose an abundance of time every day due to an accumulation of starting the day later than top performers do, calling on the "wrong" clients and people too long, conducting "service calls" on comfort-zone clients, laying out client visits in a haphazard manner, not getting the visit accomplished in a business-like manner along with many more time wasters.

High performers schedule many of their first appointments as breakfast meetings. Scheduling three breakfast meetings at 7:00 a.m. equals 150 more client visits in a year-and it equals 150 calls made before your competitors make their first ones.

High performers understand that time is their real currency, use it or lose it. They understand that losingjust five minutes daily equals 1,250 minutes annually. Sound trivial? It isn't. If you want to earn $100,000, you must think and act like a $100,000 person does. They undersrand that each minute, gained or lost, is worth $.85. Again, small potatoes? No, because that translates to $12,000 annually if you pick up 60 minutes daily.

Bill Blades, CMC, CPS, is a professional speaker and consultant specializittg in sales and leadershilt issues. He can be reached ar (480) 67 1 -3000.