The Key to High Sales Productivity

One of the issues most often raised by my clients is better time management. People have tried prioritizing tasks, blocking out parts of their day for certain tasks, implementing new systems and getting better at delegation. While all of those things can make a difference, there is something else that will have an even greater impact on your sales productivity. The key to high sales productivity is energy management more so than time management.

Let me start to explain this concept by way of an example. A couple of years ago, a client was frustrated with his productivity. He had just come back from vacation and wondered to me why he couldn't be as productive on his return as he had been on the day before he left. On the day before he left, he was a whirlwind of activity - plowing through the important phone calls that had to be made, responding to all the important emails on his computer, and clearing his desk of all the paperwork that needed his attention. By the end of the day, everything important had been attended to. He had had one of his most productive days. But upon his return, he had fallen back into his routine - productive, but not highly productive. He wanted to know how, or if, he could be highly productive on a daily basis. The answer is yes and no...

The reason for each answer has to do with energy management. Good energy management can allow you to be highly productive on a regular basis and poor energy management can keep you at average productivity or worse. Everything we do - from making sales calls to conducting meetings and presentations to attending little league games - requires energy. Most of us fail to take into account the importance that energy plays in our lives. Without the right amount of energy, properly focused and applied, we simply can't be as productive as we could be. Certainly, even with a poor level of
energy, we can be productive - most everyone is. We're just not highly productive. Think about your day. Do you get up feeling tired? Do you put yourself on "cruise control" with a steady flow of caffeine throughout the day? Is your mental capacity diminished by mid-afternoon? Are you too tired to be active with family or outside interests in the evening?

Energy management has even greater impact than just physically getting through the day. I don't know about you, but when most people get tired their creativity drops, their persistence abandons them, and they get a bit edgy and less tolerant of people and challenges. A drop of energy impacts virtually every area of our lives.

Another critical key to effective energy management is to understand the many positive implications of stretching our abilities and then taking time to recover and rejuvenate. Regular recovery and rejuvenation are essential to becoming highly productive. I can't stress enough the impact that regular - often daily - rejuvenation can have on your energy, attitude, creativity, enthusiasm, and spirit.

Let's get back to the client example I started this article with. My client wanted to know how, or if, he could be as highly productive on a daily basis as he was on the day before his vacation, and my answer was yes and no. The yes part of the answer is that you can be highly productive on a regular basis, day after day, by managing your energy and the things that influence it. On the other hand (the no part of the answer) it's impossible to be highly productive without allowing your body, mind, emotions and spirit to recover and rejuvenate regularly. Remember, when we're tired we tend to slow down, make more mistakes and have a harder time being creative. After all, the main reason vacations exist is to allow us to recover and rejuvenate. You can accomplish more, with less effort and
more creativity by backing off from time to time to recharge. Choosing how and when to recharge throughout the week is another story...

To recap what we've discussed in this article, the key to being highly productive in sales (or in any endeavor for that matter) is to manage your energy. By attending to your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs you can accomplish more with more enthusiasm, more creative and more enjoyment than you ever have before.