There are many interpretations in business regarding how we spend our time. If you are in a sales position of some sort, the ideal way to spend your time is selling – whether it be face to face or some facet using technology, the life blood of a business is transactions that close.
Whenever we consider how we spend our time, the first thing that jumps out to a manager, owner or sales person is - where does our time go?
We have to identify what our best use of time is, and how we attract business and new offers that we can be making.
Unfortunately, when we review our schedule for the past week or even past month, we find that far too much of our time is lost or spent on low priority items, or non-revenue producing items that can kill your potential as a business or sale’s person.
Common mistakes about our time
If you are in the role of sales, does it make sense for you to be reviewing a file status on a client? Do you truly need to know the minutia of a file, or just the main directive, that is, is it on target to close?
How much time do you spend on email or surfing the web?
Some tasks that are massive time consumers show up as voice mail, email (ever wonder just how much time you spend on email? Time it tomorrow). There are many taks over the course of a day that show up as non- income producing, and therefore a low value return.
In real estate, our highest and best use is to be talking to new clients, working with referral sources, social media where we either write blogs or do video that help demonstrate our competence, etc. or some other form of prospecting.
When we begin to drill down our day, the easiest way to make grounded assessments is to write a list of all of our activities over the course of a day. Take a guess at the percentage of items you are working on that do not add up to real results for you, your team or your company.
What do I do once I have my results of my time spent?
Start by taking a deep breath, as it is often a shock to see how much time is spent on low value activity.
We find that most of the time the majority of your work can be delegated, whether that means hiring an assistant OR revising the role definition of those around you if you already have an assistant or a team. You may have plenty of staff, but do you ever wonder if they are being productive to their highest level?
Clearly re directing activity to the 2 or 3 things that are top revenue activity for you or your company can massively improve sales results, and of course, income. It is a way to self-manage and to get deeper insight to everything that we do.
Getting coaching in this regard can also be helpful. Coaches can review our week objectively, whereas we may find it very hard to let go of certain things that we do. We are certainly creatures of habit, and this is one time where that may well be costing us dearly.
Action items and takeaways
Commit to actually timing your day, with how much time spent on each item and a comprehensive list of what you are doing during the day. This takes a little practice and total honesty, and can lead to much more effective action for yourself.
Once you have your list, identifying the strongest revenue producing activity is the next step, and in turn the re directing of our day to spend significantly more time working on vital work is a win-win. Our clients, our boss and our bank account usually benefit when we manage the day instead of the other way around.
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