Surprise! There aren’t 48 hours in a day.

Some people just don’t seem to understand that the day is only 24 hours long. You’d think after a few years on Earth people would get used to this fact. But after working with sales professionals for the last 15 years I have developed some (hardly unique) insight: all sales professionals want to increase their sales, and many think the best way to do it is to work harder with longer hours. Sadly, this strategy will never work. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

As the adage goes, you have to work smarter, not harder.

Let’s take a look at some steps that proven sales leaders use regularly to maximize their business.

The key attribute that the doers (those that have consistently grown their business) have in common is they understand that in order for them to continually get better, they have to be willing to change their behaviors when necessary. For most people, change is hard, and a pain in the ass. That’s why so many fail to grow and reach their goals. The good ones–the ones who experience the quickest growth–work smarter by constantly scrutinizing their business and maximizing their time.

Four areas you can change to double your business:

1. You

• How productive are you on a given day?
• What is your return on time? (What do you make on an hourly basis?)
• What do you do in the course of the day that is the most profitable? The least?

2. Your Customers

• Are you working with the right customers?
• Are you spending your time developing priority customers?
• Are there customers you need to fire?
• Are you able to “build it once, sell it many” (or learn it once/sell it many, design it once/sell it many)?
• What expansion opportunities do you have within your existing customer base (can you add another zero to the order)?

3. Your Distributorship

• Are they keeping you out of the weeds?
• Are they eliminating the non-productive behaviors?
• Are they giving you a competitive advantage?
• Are they enabling you to run faster?

4. Third Parties

• Are there tasks that aren’t worth your time? Are you outsourcing those tasks?
• Are you using third parties to give you a competitive advantage?

My hopes are that you maximize your potential. The person that can make the biggest impact on your business is the person in the mirror. You control the degree to which you can maximize your skills.

Start today, evaluate your leverage points and make the appropriate changes. Lord knows, you don’t want to be doing the exact same thing five years down the road.

Cheers!

JB

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