Time Management for Sales Reps

Last week, I heard from a super impressive customer who has cracked the code on how to give salespeople something they’ve always wanted: more selling time. Here’s how he transformed their process. This customer runs the full B2B sales motion at an awesome printing business based in the U.S. For years, his team divided their time across six key areas: 1. Task prioritization 2. Meeting prep 3. Customer responses 4. Prospecting 5. Closing deals 6. Sales strategy Like every sales leader I know, he wants his team to spend most of their time on #5 and #6 — closing deals and sales strategy. But together, those only made up about 30% of their week. (Hearing this gave me flashbacks to my time in sales…and all that admin tasks 😱) Now, his team uses AI across the sales process to compress the amount of time spent on #1-4: 1. Task prioritization → AI scores leads and organizes daily tasks 2. Meeting prep → AI surfaces insights from calls and contact records before meetings 3. Customer responses → Breeze Customer Agent instantly answers customer questions 4. Prospecting → Breeze Prospecting Agent automatically researches accounts and books meetings The result? Higher quantity of AI-powered work: More prospecting. More pipeline.  Higher quality of human-led work: More thoughtful conversations. Sharper strategy. This COO's story made my week. It's a reminder of just how big a shift we're going through – and why it’s such an exciting time to be in go-to-market right now.

I spent most of the time on the road to Chubbies' IPO thinking “Brand” marketing was B.S. However, these 5 ideas changed that. They helped me gain confidence that: 1) Brand building is something modern consumer brands NEED to do 2) There IS a way to connect brand building to financial results 3) Doing so generates MORE PROFITS than direct response alone Cliffs notes on the 5 ideas and what you can do about it: IDEA 1: The 95/5 Rule EXPERT: John Dawes; Ehrenberg-Bass Institute CONTENT 1: The 95:5 rule is the new 60:40 rule URL: https://lnkd.in/grVu7-KS POINTS: - Only 5% of buyers are in-market to buy right now. - Effective marketing increases the probability the brand comes to mind when the buyer goes in-market. ACTION: - Focus on the 95% - Make creative that gets remembered. IDEA 2: Physical and Mental Availability EXPERT: Byron Sharp; Ehrenberg Bass CONTENT: How do you measure 'How Brands Grow'? URL: https://lnkd.in/g3Rvswmu (translate 2 English) POINTS: - Brand growth comes from growing the following two things a) Mental availability: buyers think of the brand when in the market to buy. b) Physical availability: buyers can buy the brand when and where they’re ready. - When you build mental availability, you increase the likelihood people buy from you without being prompted by a conversion ad. ACTION: - Building mental availability is priority numero uno. IDEA 3: There's an optimal split btw Brand Marketing and Activation marketing to maximize profits EXPERT: Les Binet CONTENT: The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing URL: https://lnkd.in/g2fbT3JT KEY POINTS: - Objective data support a 60/40 split of brand building & conversion as the ideal mix of base sales growth and sales spikes TOGETHER. - Brand and DR creative is v different. ACTION: - Determine if ur current split is ideal IDEA 4: Connecting Brand building to financial results is possible EXPERT: Dominique Hanssens & Prof. dr. Koen Pauwels at UCLA & Les Binet CONTENT: Consumer Attitude Metrics for Guiding Marketing Mix Decisions URL: https://lnkd.in/gXGm7YKa POINTS: - Measuring the financial impact of brand marketing is a 2 step process: 1) marketing activities impact consumer attitudes 2) consumer attitude changes lead to future revenue changes ACTION: - read 5 below IDEA 5: Measuring digital behaviors is the modern method for doing idea 4 EXPERT: James Hankins & Les Binet CONTENT: Share of Search - a new way to track brands advertising URL: https://lnkd.in/gm5CAGVU POINTS: - Digital behaviors like share of search predict future sales ACTION: - Identify the digital behaviors that lead to the largest future $ impact - Focus brand building on increasing those metrics And there you have it: How to turn Brand marketing from Bull Sh*t to Holy Sh*t

One major reason why sales reps miss quota: They don't spend enough time selling👇 In fact, they only sell 28% of their day. The other 72% are spent in non-selling activities. - Email and Slack - Internal meetings - Updating the CRM - Other types of busywork This is a massive problem. If you only move the needle 28% of the time... how are you supposed to get to your number? The solution: implement Pareto Time Management. Pareto's Law states: 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities. Here's how to implement that in your day to day: Step 1): Time Inventory For one entire week track how you spend your time. - Use a timer. - Fill out a spreadsheet. - Then categorize activities. The goal here is to create transparency and self-awareness. Step 2): Activity Separation Decide which activities have a direct revenue impact vs. which do not. - Build a table with 2 columns. - Revenue vs. non-revenue activities - Important: use your own best judgement here. Step 3): Time Blocking Now it's time to plan your next week. - Block sufficient time for revenue activities. - I recommend aiming for 50% (~20h) weekly. - Aim for more if you can. Important: Communicate this with your manager & team. This is change management. Step 4): Color coding - Use different colors for revenue vs. non revenue activities. - This will give you a better sense of time budgeting. Closing remarks: time management is a never ending effort. There will always be other things competing for your attention. DO NOT LET THEM WIN. Focus on selling. What's your best time management tip for sellers?👇 Graphic by Pejman Milani

Nobody wastes your time more than a prospect that will never buy. I wish somebody taught me this early in my sales career. Biggest mistake I ever made as a sales rep. Not being honest with myself about what was a real opportunity. I don’t know why this is not a top priority in onboarding for sales rep yet. How to quickly disqualify. I disrespected my own time so much as a rep that I cringe thinking about it. -people that decline invites with no explanations -people that reschedule multiple times with no explanations -people that are 5+ minutes late for a call and don’t apologize -people that are clearly typing and disengaged when you are asking questions -people that give you one word answers and clearly don’t want to be there It’s not your job in sales to convince people to buy. On the flip side, as buyers, we sometimes need to be called out as well. I’ve been guilty of the above. My advice? Have respect for yourself as a salesperson. Your time matters. Most buyers are guilty of the above because they have also had to deal with terrible salespeople. I’m not here to put blame on either side. However, It’s your job as a sales rep to figure out if you can align to the top 3 priorities of the company at that moment. You should operate with the mindset that nobody owes you anything. I’ve been a “buyer” now for 4 years. It doesn’t matter if I think your product is cool or helpful. If you don’t solve the problem that my exec team cares about right now it means nothing to me. The craziest part? Most companies with product market fit could align to the priorities of any given company if they talked to customers every day. But most orgs would rather focus on scaling with “AI”. AI isn’t going to save you. Your customers will save you. A few different ideas here to think about.

Most sales managers won't admit this, but it's smart to give up on prospects. I’m sure you’ve heard legends about the dogged salesperson who finally booked a meeting with their dream prospect after calling them every single week for a decade straight. Sadly, that sort of "pleasant persistence" is a misguided waste of time. They would have booked far more meetings had they used those extra dials on prospects who would have answered far more quickly. You only have only so many "sales calories" you can expend in a given day. If you care about booking meetings (and not just winning the activity leaderboard), draw lines of diminishing returns so you know when it's time to give up and move on to the next prospect: 📲 5 dials in 4 weeks: When you’ve literally cold called someone every week for a month straight, give them a rest for a month and try calling other prospects for now. ☎️ Stop after 2 voicemails: 2 voicemails is enough to reap the benefits of increasing your email replies. Don’t waste time leaving a 3rd. ✋ Avoid impassable gatekeepers: If they keep shutting you down, avoid them by calling your prospect’s cell, contacting them on other channels, or dialing at off-hours. 👻: If a prospect you've met is "ghosting" you, draw the line at 30 days. After absolutely nothing back from them in a month, move them to a quarterly drip sequence.  ____ "Giving up" on prospects doesn't mean you're giving up on selling. It simply means you're using your brain and allocating your limited effort into the prospects you have the best chance of winning. Do not take pride in endless followup to non-responsive prospects. Focus on effectiveness instead of blind persistence. 

At my last company (a massive organization doing billions in revenue - I won’t mention who), my team and I spent 99% of our time trying to answer this question How could we give our sales teams more time back? This was so they could spend more of their time doing the stuff that truly made a difference: Spending time with customers & users Honestly the biggest killer of time was a category of work we called “crm hygiene.” Sales teams would spend HOURS every week cleaning up the CRM: enriching contacts, updating details, filling in missing fields. And there was never a real solution for it. …until now. Since AI-native software started popping up, CRM has always been the first use case I thought about. People are dynamic - they change jobs, get promoted, move cities. Deals shift constantly - stages change, timelines move, context surfaces in every call and email. When you have thousands of contacts, keeping everything updated manually becomes impossible. I came across Lightfield. They’ve built the CRM I always wished existed: It connects to Gmail and Calendar automatically Joins sales calls, captures context, creates and enriches contacts Takes meeting notes, suggests action items, and updates fields for you And you can run CRM analytics conversationally (e.g., “How has my ICP changed this month?”) It's pretty impressive. If you're dealing with the same CRM headaches, worth checking out → https://lnkd.in/dHyPx7mk #ad

Sales folks, take note! Spamming a target company's employees with your services and requests for meetings will result in your company making its way onto a buyer's blocklist. As a buyer in the localization industry, I receive dozens of emails and LinkedIn requests every single day from vendors looking to showcase translation, AI, QA services, and more. It's not humanly possible to give personal replies to every outreach. When vendors can't get through to me, they often reach out to everyone on my team... and sometimes to many others across my company. I'd love for this practice to stop. It wastes valuable company time and makes a vendor appear desperate and non-strategic. Here's what to do instead: 1. Appeal to ego! Invite a target company’s decision-maker to a panel, or start a vlog series and ask buyers to appear and discuss industry topics. It’s also a great opportunity to reposition your company as a thought leader. 2. Offer genuine insight, not just services. Share a case study, white paper, or benchmarking data that’s actually useful to the buyer’s role, and do it without a sales pitch. 3. Build a reputation before you build a pipeline. Comment thoughtfully on posts. Contribute to community conversations. If you consistently show up with value, you’re far more likely to get noticed. 4. Target smarter, not broader. Don’t shotgun your message to an entire company. Learn the org. Understand the buyer’s scope. Then send one well-researched, personalized note that shows you actually did your homework. 5. Focus on mutual value. Can you help solve a known pain point or offer perspective on something changing in the market? Frame your outreach around collaboration, not consumption. 6. Use timing to your advantage. Keep tabs on when companies are hiring for roles associated with your offerings, launching in new markets, or attending conferences. That’s when buyers are more receptive to new solutions. 7. Lead with generosity. Offer a no-strings-attached resource, intro, or suggestion that doesn’t benefit you directly. Reciprocity is a powerful trust builder. And please! Don't ever ever call me on the phone! ;)

I just analyzed the calendars of 50 top performing sales reps. The difference between quota crushers and quota missers isn't what you think. It's not their territory. Not their product. Not their comp plan. → It's how they structure their TIME. After a decade coaching thousands of sales professionals I've noticed something. High performers don't work more hours. They work different hours. They obsess over IPAs. Income Producing Activities. Average reps spend over half their week on admin garbage. Top earners ruthlessly protect time for revenue generating work. I recently tracked my own time for two full weeks. Down to 15 minute blocks. The results shocked me (Yes, I’m still able to shock myself sometimes). Even though I teach this stuff I was spending 35% of my week on $20 per hour tasks instead of $2,000 per hour activities. I was stepping over hundred dollar bills to pick up pennies. Here's exactly how elite sales performers structure their week. Increasing pipeline - 25 to 30% of time Cold outreach that actually converts Social selling that builds real authority Discovery calls that uncover massive pain Creating opportunities not just conversations Progressing pipeline - 25 to 30% of time Moving deals forward with clear purpose Meeting key stakeholders Running customized demos Building business cases that sell themselves Closing pipeline - 15 to 20% of time Negotiating from a position of strength Handling objections before they surface Working legal and procurement strategically Actually asking for the business Upgrading skills - 15 to 20% of time Mastering objection handling frameworks Improving discovery techniques Studying influence and persuasion Learning from top performers Here's how to reclaim your time starting today. Step 1. Run a brutal time audit Track every 15 to 30 minutes for one full week. No lying to yourself. No rounding up. Just raw data on where your time actually goes. Step 2 . Categorize every single activity Time wasting activities that cost you money Low value admin worth $20 per hour Core selling activities worth $200 per hour High leverage skills worth $500 plus per hour Step 3. Calculate your IPA percentage What percentage of your week is spent directly generating revenue? If it's under 75% you're leaving massive money on the table. Step 4. Eliminate, automate, delegate Eliminate the zero dollar per hour activities completely Automate the repetitive busywork Delegate the necessary but low leverage tasks I hired an EA after realizing I was wasting 14 plus hours weekly on tasks I could delegate for $25 per hour. That's $28,000 in opportunity cost every single week. The math is brutally simple. $20 per hour tasks times 14 hours equals $280 value created $2,000 per hour tasks times 14 hours equals $28,000 value created What if the biggest lever to grow your sales income isn’t what you sell - but how you spend your time? ⏳ I unpacked the whole strategy in the comments 👀

You can waste a lot of time chasing deals that don’t close. Not a fit is a good conclusion if arrived early. It’s a horrible miscalculation if you arrive late. When I get an inbound lead, I send this email: “Hi {name}, nice meeting you, albeit virtually. I know there are a lot of choices out there for sales trainers, so thanks for considering me. So I don't do you a disservice by wasting your time, here are four reasons why I might not be a fit: 1. I don’t sign service agreements or NDAs, nor do I require confidential information. I have a simple plain English one-page agreement. 2. I require payment upfront. 3. Workshops are 20-30k. 4. I don't have availability until the end of May. We can discuss the details, of course, but first, I wanted to find out if you’re okay with the $, terms, and dates.” I close 90% of deals that respond positively. (Here’s a response from today.) I spend 0% of my time talking with people who don’t respond. Knowing how to protect your time is a good skill to master.

If you’re doing everything yourself, you’re not leading. You’re micromanaging. I learned this the hard way. Early on, I thought being involved in every task was a sign of commitment. But it actually meant I was slowing the team down and holding onto control. Delegation is not about giving away work. It’s about building trust, developing capability, and stepping back so others can step up. Here are the 7 secrets that helped me do it better ⤵️ 1️⃣ Hire the Right Talent → Start by identifying people with the right strengths not just experience, but mindset and initiative. 2️⃣ Mentorship and Training → Don’t just assign tasks. Teach the ‘why’, coach the ‘how’, and stay involved until they’re ready. 3️⃣ Trust in Team Capabilities → If you’ve hired and trained well, trust them to do the job without hovering. Let them lead. 4️⃣ Lead by Example → Model the behaviour you expect. If you want your team to take ownership, show what that looks like in your own work. 5️⃣ Provide Clear Guidelines → Be direct about expectations, outcomes, and timelines then give space for the team to deliver. 6️⃣ Foster Open Communication → Create a feedback loop. Make it safe to ask questions, flag risks, or share progress early. 7️⃣ Celebrate Achievements → Acknowledge initiative, not just output. Public praise reinforces private confidence. Delegation is an act of leadership. Done well, it builds people and frees you to lead where it matters the most. Question: What’s one delegation lesson you had to learn the hard way? -------------------------- Hi, I am Muhammad Mehmood. Helping you build what lasts.