4 Tips for Planning Your Most Successful Sales Day

Great sales days don’t happen by accident. They are well planned and well executed.

All the top sales pros will tell you that in a successful selling day, they leave nothing to chance – they give beautifully delivered performances that require skill, discipline and planning.

Here are four tips for creating and managing your successful selling day.

1. Start Strong to Finish Strong

How you begin your day matters tremendously. What do you do? What do you take in? How do you manage your time before you arrive at work?

You’ve probably heard “the early bird gets the worm”? Well I don’t think there is any specific magic to 5 am vs. 8 am except that I’ve noticed that when I rise before the rest of world, I feel a calmness.

I can get things done without interruption. I don’t feel the rush and bustle of the day tugging at me. Early morning is often the best time for creative work because it is typically a more quiet, peaceful and focused time of the day.

2. Plan Your Daily Calendar

Think of your day in chunks and block out discreet times of the day to achieve specific tasks.

For instance, perhaps your first 30 minutes is agenda planning for the day where you create a list of specific actions that need to happen. Then maybe your next 30 minutes is organizing your email into what you need to respond to right away, what you can defer until later, what is just for reference, etc. Then maybe your next 45 minutes will be dedicated to follow-up… you get the idea.

What you want to avoid is multitasking. Multitasking is bad! Multitasking almost always means you are doing a lot of things poorly.

So if you are working on agenda planning, don’t have your email open to distract you. If you are following up with clients, don’t have your twitter account dinging in the background trying to grab your attention.

My mantra (via Steven Covey) is “the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing”.

3. Prepare for Surprises

If there is one thing we know in sales, it’s that things are never going to go exactly as planned.

So how do you react when things start to go sideways? The best defense is always paired with a strong offensive.

Most surprises are avoided by doing the right things upfront – listening to and treating customers appropriately, setting the proper expectations with your clients, saying “no” when saying “no” is needed, etc.

But when you do get surprised, the best advice I can give you is to remain calm, be professional, show empathy towards the person/situation and listen. Simply listen. Don’t try to solve or react too quickly.

4. Measure Your Success

Replay the day in your head. Where were your wins? Even in a day that didn’t result is a sale, there are still wins to recognize and celebrate.

Did you help a customer improve their life in some way? Did you solve a complex problem? Did you handle a difficult customer effectively? Did you help out a teammate?

Finding your daily wins will help you stay focused and keep you motivated.

Everyone wants to have a successful sales day. Follow these four tips so that you can have your best sales days yet.


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About the Author: Amy O'Connor

As one of the most in-demand sales training consultants in North America today, Amy O’Connor brings a decade’s worth of industry experience and knowledge, along with a fresh female perspective on leadership, to her impactful and enlightening seminars.