Lost time can be the enemy of every sales person. Sales people can easily lose sight of the implications of losing too much unnecessary time during the working day. The end result is this can drive down profits considerably over the financial year. It is important to assess the value of sales. It is equally important to keep this number in the back of the sales person’s mind during the working day.

Doing so will increase the sales person’s effectiveness. Establish what the ‘time wasters’ are in the working day, it might be conversations that run on too long. Although it is important to gain the trust of a prospect, idle small talk will cost the sales person money in lost time. Avoid over socialization if it is going to eat too deeply into the working day. The very best sales people can be time wasters simply because they lack self discipline and good time management skills.

Below are the five biggest time wasters for sales people that can be avoided.

1. Sales people need to be out on the road selling as quickly as possible. One distraction is spending too much time in the morning at the office. Once in the office it may get difficult to leave for one reason or another. One answer to this dilemma is to visit a sales prospect your first port of call of the day. Drop into the office at the end of the working day, only when you have visited your quota of leads.

2.There is sometimes a temptation to linger with poor leads where there is a poor chance of securing a sale. This is a time waster, and sale people should avoid wasting time pushing a poor quality prospect? The best sales people in the world cannot make someone buy goods they simply do not need. It is better to use that precious time moving on to a better more lucrative prospect.

3. Some sales people are reluctant to get on with the business in hand, press ahead and close a sale. They never know when the right moment arrives to seal a deal. Hesitancy is bad for sales and can result in needless visits and call backs. The time taken on these call backs and visits will result in overall loss of sales.

4. Map out each working day to be as efficient as possible. A big time waster is a badly planned day, where time is lost simply through poor preparation. Sort the leads into order, so no time is lost in traveling. Time spend behind the wheel of the car in traffic equates to lost sales opportunities.

Proportion you time and decide how much time you intend to spend with each prospect and as far as possible stick to it. Bad commuting and waiting time are lost opportunities to brush up on product familiarization. Always carry essential reading material in your attaché case.

5. Another big time waster for sales people is poor record keeping. It is important to be organized as much as possible. The time a sales person spends looking for mislaid or missing files and information is time that cannot be recovered and will result in lost sales.

It is important for sales people to sit down and examine what the ‘time wasters’ are during the working day and to devise a new system to cut down on on time wastage and ultimately improve on sales performance.