I’m always both baffled and entertained by sales calls I receive.

You have to wonder sometimes how these guys make any money. Blabber, blabber, blabber. Feature, feature, feature.

Boring, boring, boring.

What surprises me even more, though, is how much time a sales rep will invest in me even though I’m an extremely unqualified prospect. They’d rather spend an hour with me in what seems like a one-way conversation (monologue?) rather than spend 10 minutes making sure I’m worthy and prime for their product or service. (Which, ironically, makes them more attractive. But I digress ….)

It’s like they get points or something for giving presentations.

With this in mind, I’ve vowed to put both sales reps and myself out of our collective misery as soon as I know something isn’t gonna happen. I’ve vowed to say “no” often and quickly.

It works really well. And though they don’t know it, I’m doing the sales rep a favor, too.

Say “No” More Often

Here’s how it’s worked so far:  Once, after sitting through a rep’s pitch for 45 minutes (in which I may have said four words, consisting of mostly “Oh,” “gotcha,” “I see.” You know, pulse-checkers), and after the rep made the amazing case for how his service will save me the equivalent of $5 million a year annually in labor costs and lead to 20% increases in retention and order size growth, I simply responded with, “This looks like a great service, but it’s not right for us right now.”

Then, silence.

I think where we prospects get in trouble is that we feel like we have to justify our responses. Like we have to make a case for saying “no.”

We don’t. We get to say whatever we want to. The whole act of sales is that the salesman is the one making a case for us to say “yes.”

So the silence is actually key here, because your sales rep is waiting for you to hem and haw about why you can’t do this right now. Because once that happens, they can throw out the “Well, why don’t I follow up with you in a month or so and see where you’re at?” To which you would typically jump at the chance to simply relieve your sense of obligation to explain your decision now. Even though you already know nothing’s gonna change in one month.

Stop doing that.

In a way that would make Nancy Reagan extremely proud, just say no. Leave it at that. If they want to follow-up, I typically tell them they’re welcome to send me anything they’d like, but nothing will change within 30 days, or 90 days, or 365 days. The service is just not a fit.

Is Saying “No” Cruel?

Oddly, you may feel like you’re being mean at this point. But you’re actually doing the nicest thing you can do for any sales rep worth their salt. You’re giving them an honest answer. You’re giving them permission to stop wasting time planning touch-base calls with you in the future. You’re allowing them to wipe your name off the white board (when it probably never should have been there to begin with). You’re making room for someone who is qualified.

You’re also saving yourself from a lot of nagging phone calls and emails down the road.

You can apply this mentality much sooner in the process, too. If you get an email from a sales rep wanting to “connect,” don’t ignore it. Quickly respond with a “no thanks.”

When you get a phone call from a rep wanting to simply set up 15 minutes next week, say “no thanks.” When they ask why not, tell them exactly why. They should consider it market research.

Start saying “no” more quickly. It gives you the chance to say yes to more of the important stuff.

(Unless, of course, you want to say “yes.” I’m not anti-sales rep; I’m just anti-clueless sales reps. If you find something you actually want, by all means say “yes.”)

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Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedamnmushroom/

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I’m digging Chris Brogan’s recent post Your Blog is Not Your Job, but not for the reasons he intended, I think.

Chris has some extremely practical, and old-school, ways to stay on track. In today’s digital landscape where chasing the proverbial rabbit is easier than ever, the tips are good.

But they require that you know what your main objective for the day is. I contend most people don’t even go this far.

Too many of us (yes, I’m often guilty) wake up and/or show up and simply respond. We don’t take the time to determine a main objective for the day. Which means we can’t even make sense of Chris’ other tips because we don’t get this foundational part down.

So, in the spirit of the pot calling the kettle black, here are some quick tips on clearly defining your main objective every day:

1. Set a time to take a deep breath and reset. What you need here is perspective on everything that’s at hand. What’s going to move the box the most efficiently?
2. Be methodical and consistent. It may take only five minutes, but take those five minutes seriously.
3. Commit to only one main objective each day. It’s not plural. It doesn’t mean other things won’t happen, but force yourself to make sure this one thing happens today, come hell or high water.
4. Carve out an hour (at least) early in the day. Focus on your main objective. Make like the UPS guy and get it done before 10 a.m. Then you’ve got the rest of the day waiting for you.
5. Write it down. Then keep it with you. Chris mentions sticky notes on the monitor. Whatever works for you, do it every day. Then, take joy in crumpling it up or crossing it off when it’s done.

What tactics do you use each day to keep you on point?

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Next time you sit down and go through your to-do list, ask these questions of yourself:

1. What can you delegate?
2. What can you automate?
3. What can you eliminate?
4. On what should you concentrate?

I’ve just started asking myself these questions on a weekly basis. Who’s knows: pretty soon I might even start doing something with the answers.

Another good tip is to read this guy’s stuff.

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A couple thoughts from C.C. Chapman’s Managing the Gray podcast got me thinking earlier this week.

Do you Dread Your Drive to Work?

C.C.’s ramblings (and I mean that in a good way – he does it productively!) sparked this question in my mind: Which do you dread more: your drive to work in the morning, or your drive from work in the afternoon?

Put another way, do you actually look forward to your drive to work in the morning, and regret to some degree that you have to leave in the afternoon? If the answer is yes, then you’re fortunate that you get to spend so much time doing something you clearly enjoy. If not, should you maybe face the fact that spending 8+ hours a day doing something you don’t like to do doesn’t make sense?

I hate to oversimplify situations, because I know we all have responsibilities we must account for, families we must take care of, and times when we simply have to do what we have to do. However, there are tons of ways to make a living out there. There are tons of options. Why not pick the option that both pays your bills and allows you to spend a chunk of your valuable time doing something that challenges you and makes you happy?

Saying Hell Yeah!

The other part of C.C. Chapman’s podcast episode was a reference to this post by Derek Sivers. In summary, it describes a problem many of us have: taking on too many projects. I’m so guilty of this. I come across so many projects with friends that seem like they’d be fun, but they end up being a huge time-suck for me and I rarely deliver with excellence because of it. But the “Hell Yeah” filter changes that. When presented with a project, if your immediate reaction isn’t “hell yeah, I want to work on that,” then let it pass. Everyone will be better off for it. As Derek puts it, “We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out.”

Be sure to read Derek’s post, and congrats to C.C. for the new work with Campfire.

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David at Marketing Integrity pointed the way to this post on work and time by James at Agile Ministry, and I’m glad he did. 

We all know we shouldn’t be workaholics. We all are at times, though. James manages to clarify the real issues and pitfalls of going down that trail too often. 

My favorite quote: “Working long days in an effort to build up free time later never works. You must pay for it somewhere, so if you start to sprint you’ll be winded once the project is done.”

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If you’re a marketer, you’ve got a lot of people counting on you.

Creative is always needing your input on their work. Financial analysts need you to ok their latest pricing models. Legal and Regulatory need you to send your wish list of claims. R&D needs you to narrow down their work. Customer Service needs you to point the way on just how to deal with certain customers.

And on and on.

Someone’s always counting on marketing because marketing is what sets the tone. Marketing writes the agenda for just about the rest of the company.

Which can present a problem. There’s nothing more you want than to move things forward. The issue is that, more times than not, the quagmire is you. On top of that, you’re normally not the person who actually executes what needs to happen, so you have to rely on others. Who in turn are first relying on you.

It’s only natural. You can only handle so many emails, so many meetings, so many phone calls, so many presentations. But nobody else really cares about that. What they want to know is what to do next.

So here’s the challenge: how can you quickly get things off your plate and onto someone else’s?

Isn’t that normally the issue? You have 8 hot items stuck because you simply haven’t had the bandwidth to concentrate on them for just a few minutes and move them along. So they just sit there, and sit there, and then you work late one night and blast them all out, only to find that it then shakes up your whole support team, cuz they don’t know exactly what and when to do next.

What if you took 30 minutes a day to get things “off your plate” and into the hands of someone who can move it forward. Treat it almost like a race, replying quickly to emails, returning calls and writing directional briefs for a solid 30 minutes. It puts the ball back in the court of the players (rather than with you, the coach) so that something can actually get done.

Lately, I’ve been doing it first thing in the morning, before I make my breakfast shake in the office, before I open my calendar, before all that stuff. My problem is doing it when I feel like I don’t have 30 minutes to burn. But then it hit me, if each item takes an hour for the “player” to complete, and I have on average 5 items to get off my plate at any given time, then that 30 minutes quickly becomes 5 hours worth productivity. So it makes sense.

Don’t overlook or underestimate the importance of your constant guidance in a project. You’re the marketer. You’re the one responsible for getting your product to market, and no one is going to completely share your paradigm and sense of urgency. Your team is dependent on you for those things. You’ve got to remind them, and you’ve got to get them what they need to get it done.

You’ve got to get things off your plate.

Related posts on Brett’s Blog:

1. Thinking Outside the List
   
2. Move the Box

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 This post is provided by Bruce over at Write On!  

Brett’s post, ‘ The 2 Most Productive Things You Can Do‘ got me thinking about my own productivity and time management techniques.

Like most managers, I’ve read countless articles and books on the subject. By far the best I’ve ever read is First Things First, by Stephen R Covey, A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R Merrill.

(You may recognise Covey as the author of the popular ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’).

Although written in 1995, most of the concepts covered are equally valid today.

The biggest learning points for me were:

• The need to have a balanced life, with equal importance given to health & fitness, relationships, career & financial, and personal development
• The importance of identifying high level goals for each of these areas
• Try to plan your time and tasks on a weekly basis to ensure attention is being given to what is ‘important’ in your life, rather than what is merely ‘urgent’
• Sometimes life gets in the way of an ideal balance – for example there may be a health crisis in your family. Or there might be a major project at work. Or you may have an important exam looming. Understandably, these circumstances may lead to a situation where the other areas of your life do not receive adequate attention. Try to get things back on an even keel as quickly as possible.
• Sometimes you can kill two birds with one stone, by scheduling activities which achieve multiple goals – for example you may have goals to spend more time with your kids, and to improve your fitness by walking three times a week. By scheduling a family walk on the weekend you can achieve both goals at once. Similarly, you can lose weight and save money by bringing your lunch to work rather than eating junk food.
• The big take out point – if you work hard every day to climb a ladder, and find after many years that the ladder you’ve climbed was against the wrong wall, you’ll be very disappointed. You should always make sure you are working for a goal that you really feel is important at a basic moral level.

If you’re currently working hard to climb that ladder, do yourself a favour and take the time to read this book, and contemplate whether you are in fact climbing the right ladder.

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