Expecting modular home factory sales reps to be productive from
the time they wake up until the time they go to bed is a myth perpetrated by
the MBA types that are creeping into the factory management ranks.
I had a sales manager call me at midnight asking
if I could go over my sales for the day. Another showed unannounced up for a
sales call in
and the factory was in PA. Apparently he was in the area anyway!! These situations are not the norm. Being productive every
waking minute will burn out even the best sales person. However, there is a
flip side to this. There are sales reps that are so easily distracted from working
that they need to leave a breadcrumb trail so they can find their way back to
their work.
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| How some sales reps spend their day |
For them, there is little thrill in the actual sales process
and they are usually the lowest sales producers. Changing their attitudes is not
easy but it is to the benefit of the company to at least try. So what are the
biggest time wasters for these sales reps?
- Spending time with unqualified prospects. Some salespeople
would rather spend time with a poor prospect than no prospect. Why waste time
on builders who don’t want or need what you’re selling. Use the time to find
better prospects and learn to quickly qualify them. - Too many callbacks. This usually occurs when the sales rep
is hesitant to ask for the builder’s business. - Too much time emailing and texting. Even though we are all
guilty of this to an extent, the poor performing sales rep will hide their
inactivity behind all the important communication they are having with their
builders and prospects. Forwarding offensive jokes and cartoons will not make you look good to your builders, it will tell them you have too much time on your hands and aren’t working for their benefit. Quit it now. - Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Sales reps that check their social media
every 10 minutes can’t be productive. Builders that are busy don’t have the
time to be on them so the sales rep is just communicating with friends and
family. - LinkedIn is another black hole that can suck in even the
best sales rep. What on the surface might appear a great way to find new
builders can easily pull you into one of the discussion areas where you can
lose track of time. - Poorly planned sales territory. Most sales reps have
builders in large territories because the modular factory management wants to
give builders a protected territory. If a rep has a territory 100 miles square,
this means they have to cover 10,000 square miles! Too much time spent
travelling around the territory. Some salespeople spend more time behind the
wheel of their vehicle than in front of their prospects.Some reps have to cover parts of several states. - Get organized. A lot of sales people have poor record
keeping skills. Time spent looking for lost or misplaced information is time
they don’t have for selling.
Being aware of these 7 time wasters and making an effort to change
will begin to show almost immediate improvement in sales and attitudes. Good
sales managers will watch for these tell-tale signs and begin working with the sales
rep to improve.
