As a sales manager, you are responsible for a lot: meeting sales targets, managing a team, developing strategies, and dealing with unexpected issues. With so many competing priorities, it can be challenging to find the right balance and make progress on what matters most for customers. In this blog post, we’ll explore how sales managers can focus on what’s possible, balance priorities, and make time for innovation.
Focusing on What’s Possible
The key to success for sales managers is focusing on what they control and what matters most for customers. Unfortunately, the latter can be more difficult today because of the often-hidden roadblocks that create barriers to prioritization.
Finding the Right Balance
Sales managers can plot how they divide their time by putting the percentage of time they spend in each area. Ideally, spending 80% of your time reacting and 20% on innovating is a good rule of thumb, but it’s not always possible.
Learning to Have a Conversation about Tradeoffs
Sales managers need to spell out their priorities in advance and have a conversation about tradeoffs. It’s important to decide what’s not going to happen because you don’t have the capacity for it. Deprioritizing reactive activities and spending more time on optimization and innovation is ideal, but it might not always be feasible. Sales managers must make the best decision that balances these trade-offs and have confidence in that decision. Providing visibility to the rest of the team can help rally people around the priorities.
What You Can Do
To help prioritize the right tasks and initiatives while discussing them with your teams, try carrying out review meetings and figuring out meetings where you discuss upcoming tasks and how to deal with them. Discuss what everyone should put the most effort into. Reflecting on what you’re going to do to protect your time is also helpful, especially if your current time allocation looks different from your ideal time allocation.
What it Means to You
The big picture of all of this is the need to make time for innovation as a sales manager. To do that, sales managers must get out of the reaction cycle, which will involve difficult decisions about which tasks to tackle first. By focusing on what’s possible, balancing priorities, and having conversations about tradeoffs, sales managers can make time for innovation and drive success for their team.
In conclusion, as a sales manager, it’s essential to find the right balance between strategy and tactics, prioritize what matters most for customers, and make time for innovation. By focusing on what’s possible, having conversations about tradeoffs, and protecting your time, sales managers can make the difficult decisions necessary to achieve success for themselves and their team.
How Do I Tune Out Distractions in a Sales Environment?
Sales reps often face distractions that can disrupt their workflow and hinder their ability to achieve their sales targets. From answering emails and phone calls to attending meetings and dealing with unexpected issues, there’s no shortage of distractions in a sales environment. Tuning out these distractions is crucial for sales reps to focus on their sales activities and achieve their targets. Here are four tips for tuning out sales distractions:
Prioritize your sales activities. As a sales rep, your primary focus should be on sales activities that will help you achieve your targets. Identify the most critical tasks and prioritize them accordingly. By focusing on high-priority activities, you can minimize distractions and achieve your sales goals faster.
Limit email and phone distractions. Email and phone distractions can be one of the biggest productivity killers for sales reps. Set specific times during the day to check and respond to emails and phone calls. By limiting the time spent on email and phone calls, sales reps can focus on their sales activities and avoid distractions.
Block out distractions. Sales reps can use various tools and techniques to block out distractions. For example, noise-canceling headphones can help block out background noise and create a more focused work environment. Additionally, using productivity apps or browser extensions can help limit distractions from social media, news websites, or other online distractions.
Establish boundaries. As a sales rep, it’s essential to establish boundaries and communicate them to colleagues, clients, and other stakeholders. Establishing clear boundaries can help you manage expectations and minimize unexpected disruptions. For example, you could set specific office hours and communicate them to your clients, colleagues, and managers.
Tuning out sales distractions is essential for sales reps to achieve their sales targets. By prioritizing sales activities, limiting email and phone distractions, blocking out distractions, and establishing boundaries, sales reps can minimize disruptions and create a more focused work environment. Implementing these tips can help sales reps stay on track, achieve their sales goals faster, and ultimately be more productive in their sales environment.
Enable Your Sales Team Today
Teamwork is a crucial factor in achieving success in a sales environment. Working collaboratively, sales reps can leverage their strengths, share best practices, and achieve sales goals more efficiently. To support organizations in building world-class revenue sales teams, EnableU offers a Sales Enablement solution.
With the help of EnableU’s solution, sales reps can optimize their sales process, improve communication and collaboration, and ultimately achieve their sales goals faster. By prioritizing teamwork, organizations can build stronger sales teams, leading to increased productivity, better sales results, and a positive work environment. Therefore, implementing a Sales Enablement solution like EnableU can help organizations foster collaboration, teamwork, and overall success in their sales environment.