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The Top 4 Ways Salespeople Waste Their Time

The Top 4 Ways Salespeople Waste Their Time

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August 08, 2024

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In today’s Follow Up:

Time wasters in sales & the fix ⏰
The ‘follow along’ list 📜
7 things the best sales reps do 👀
Sales jobs, job market & a meme 😂

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The 4 Ways Sale Reps are Wasting Time

We all know the phrase ‘time is money’.

And when it comes to selling, it couldn’t be more true.

Every minute not spent on prospecting, outreach, talking to a potential customer, or closing a deal is time wasted on something that won’t help you hit your goal (or make more money).

As Ryan Serhant’s 1,000-minute rule says, we have roughly 1,000 minutes a day to be productive. Whether you’re Jeff Bezos, a Head of Sales, or a brand-new entry level sales rep… we all have those same 1,000 minutes to use.

In sales, there’s always work to be done, but that means there’s also a million distractions that can keep you from doing your most important work.

So, we gave the intern 3 shots of espresso and sent him out into the wild west of the internet to find the top 4 things sales reps are wasting their time on (and what to do instead).

Let’s dive in. 👇️

1. Over-Prospecting

Spending too much time researching a prospect that will never buy is a great way to make yourself feel busy, without any payoff.

Imagine spending two hours finding out every detail about a company, only to make a 30-second cold call and discover they just signed a three-year contract with your competitor. That time would have been better spent reaching out to more leads.

The Fix:

Set a strict time limit. Aim for less than 10 min per prospect. Spend more time later, once you’ve gotten a response.
Use tools that aggregate key information (like LinkedIn Sales Nav).
Only pull data needed for the initial conversation, and save the rest for later.

2. Email Copy Obsession

If it’s taking you more than 10 minutes to write a personalized email, you’re likely wasting your time.

A study found that prospects spend an average of 9 seconds looking at an email. Which unfortunately means, your emails are barely getting read. Personalization helps, but don’t overdo it.

How to Fix It:

Create email templates for specific personas.
Personalize only your first sentence.
Include why you’re reaching out, how you can help, and an easy CTA.
Just send it!

Unless it’s one of your most sought after accounts, your time is better spent reaching out to more prospects.

3. Internal Meetings

Do you really need another meeting to review last week’s results or talk about new initiatives? Probably not.

It’s estimated the average office worker spends 31 hours a month in unproductive internal meetings. Almost an entire week of wasted potential. Yikes…

How to Fix It:

Push meetings to be replaced with an email, Slack chat, or memo.
Before a meeting is scheduled define the purpose and what outcomes you want.
Block times for internal meetings outside of your most productive hours. If a meeting is scheduled outside of the blocks, say you’re busy.

4. Updating the CRM

We couldn’t make this list without mentioning every sales rep’s least favorite activity - CRM updates.

Keeping a CRM up-to-date is a secret weapon used by top reps, but spending multiple hours a day in the CRM is an easy way to waste a bunch of time.

How to Fix It:

Use tools that automate data entry (we won’t name any, but there’s plenty out there).
Set specific blocks of time on your calendar to update your CRM, preferably during less productive hours.

And with the rate at which AI is moving, manually updating a CRM will one day sound like smoking cigarettes on an airplane… did people really used to do that?

What do you think is the biggest waste of time?

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