9 years ago
January 7, 2015

5 Ways to Make Your Sales Workspace More Productive

We’ll discuss ways productive sales people optimize their work environments and explain how and why this can boost your own efficiency.

Rhys Metler

Looking to improve your output and willing to try anything? Feel like the disorganization of your sales workspace might be holding you back. Developing an ideal sales workspace can have immense benefits on your productivity, but understanding the value of a well-configured workspace and configuring your workspace for those benefits are two different things. In this post, we’ll discuss a few of ways productive sales people optimize their environments and explain how and why this can boost your own efficiency when it comes time to work.

Seize What Control You Can

There is a wealth of studies of workplace productivity suggesting that just making decisions about your workplace can improve your output. That is to say, just deciding to do things on purpose instead of having organization happen by coincidence or unconscious habit will make your sales workspace a more productive environment.

Just something like ‘this side of my desk for immediate concerns, that side of my desk for stationery and things that can wait’ can have a significant impact on your efficiency-your morale will improve and your mind will learn to work just a little more methodically.

Eliminate Clutter

Allowing the detritus of the day-to-day build up on your desk is sure to make you less productive, whether you realize it or not. At the most basic level, it related back to the first point, in that you are certainly not controlling your sales workspace if you’re allowing it to become a cluttered mess. It may not seem important, but consider how many hours people hunting for pens waste each year or clean paper in a pile of documents they don’t even need.

If it’s just on your desk because that’s where you happened to put it in the moment, get rid of it! You’ll be glad you did.

Develop Systems of Organization

When you develop and follow a system of organization, even a vague one, it has positive impacts on your ability to organize your thoughts and your morale. More directly, once you reach a point where you know where things are without having to hunt for them, your productivity will soar. Those seconds spent looking for a clean paper to write on, a printout with client information or something to write with adds up. Streamline your sales workspace and you’ll certainly become more productive.

Establish Privacy

It may not be within your ability to control, but studies have shown that privacy improves worker morale and productivity-it even improves worker communications, undermining the entire idea behind the ‘open office’ design that has become increasingly popular. If you can improve the privacy of your sales workspace without doing anything drastic, do it. The improved control of your environment, the ability to relax during discussions of confidential matters, and the freedom from unwanted distractions will make you more productive.

Experiment

Your sales workspace, in the end, needs to suit your personal needs. This is especially true for comfort-improving aspects. So experiment! Try different systems and levels of organization. Try different furniture, different lighting, different keyboards and mice. Tune your sales workspace and make it somewhere you can be productive and relaxed at the same time.

And if any item on this list seems to be hurting your ability to be productive instead of helping, tweak it, play with it, or put it aside. These are baseline ideas for making your sales workspace more productive-don’t treat them as fixed Laws of Productivity.

Rhys Metler

Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.

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