Today’s tip comes in the form of a challenge from Jeff Bajorek to carve out two blocks per day where you can focus and do real work.
Will you accept Jeff’s challenge? Either way, share your thoughts in the discussion area below. If you take Jeff up on his challenge and comment below, Jeff will send you a signed copy of his book Rethink The Way You Sell: The Five Forgotten Fundamentals of Prospecting. Just add your comment and complete this form.
Use these links to connect with and learn more about Jeff Bajorek
jeffbajorek.com
Book a meeting with Jeff
Jeff on LinkedIn
Jeff on YouTube
Transcript
Scott Ingram: Welcome to the Daily Sales Tips Podcast, I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from my friend Jeff Bajorek. Jeff is a salesman, a consultant, the co-host of the Why and The Buy Podcast and a pretty solid golfer. Here’s Jeff.
Jeff Bajorek: I’ve got a tip for you today, and you’re going to want to overlook it. You’re going to think it’s too simple. You’re going to think that it’s not complicated enough to address your personal situation. “Awww, Bajorek’s got a few good ideas, but he doesn’t know my business”. Okay. Well, I’m going to give you that tip anyway, and I’m going to let you decide after you implement it whether or not it was worth it. Are you ready? It’s a very simple challenge. I want you to identify two spots every day on your calendar — in the morning and in the afternoon. Start with thirty minutes each. Your job? Very simple. Schedule a meeting with yourself. Shut off your phone. Shut off all your notifications on your computer and do real work.
Salespeople more than other people in other industries, more than other professionals, are constantly in reactive mode. Every time you send a message, you can’t wait to hear back. That is digging in the back of your mind and it’s really just sitting right there. You can feel that point in the back of your brain just waiting for a response, and when you don’t get it you send another one. And when you don’t get that you send another one over here. Maybe it’s via email, maybe it’s via Slack, maybe it’s via social media, maybe you are just receiving all kinds of information through various channels from your company. There is noise everywhere. In order to get any “real” work done. You need to shut off the noise. So what I want you to do is create a space for yourself to get real work done. Give yourself permission for up to an hour, in the morning and in the afternoon. If you really have a lot of important thought work, some deep work that needs to get done. Then maybe you can expand beyond that, but what I’ve found is that most salespeople have a hard time giving themselves permission to do that.
Now if you had a tremendously important meeting with your biggest customer, and it was half an hour, and they asked you to shut the phone off, you’d do it. But you’re not willing to do that for yourself and that’s what I’m challenging you to do. So what do you do in these 30-minute blocks? That becomes the place where you put those projects that need your attention. I’m not talking about your expense reports. I’m not talking about updating your CRM. I’m talking about thinking through the next steps of that deal that you’re working on. I’m thinking about putting together the reporting and doing the information gathering and the research that your prospect or your customer asked you to do.
When you give yourself thirty minutes on either side of your lunch break to do real important work, you will get way more done by doing fewer things. That’s my challenge to you, and I want you to let me know how you did.
Scott Ingram: So today’s question is quite simple. Did you do it, or are you going to take Jeff up on his challenge? You might need to mark your calendar maybe a week from now to remind yourself to go to Daily Sales Tips 3 to comment on your experience, but for everybody who does, Jeff will send a signed copy of his book: Rethink The Way You Sell: The Five Forgotten Fundamentals of Prospecting
Here’s what worries me — listening to a podcast is passive. It’s so easy to just move on to the next show or the next episode. In yesterday’s tip, I talked about owning your own development and consciously deciding what you were going to do and what you weren’t going to do. So what I want you to do right now is decide. Either you’re going to try this, in which case you might want to pause the show right now and put those first few blocks on your calendar right now or decide. Thanks but no thanks that’s not for me and move on with a clear conscience. Please don’t think, “oh that’s a really good idea, I should try that out and not take any action”. Because you’ll forget. I know it, because I am it. So make that decision right now. If you’re in the car and need to pull over for a minute, awesome. If you’re in the gym and you need to wait another 30 seconds before you do that next set. Do it.
Then don’t forget to go over to Daily Sales Tips 3 and tell us how it went so Jeff can send you a copy of his book.
You’ll also find links to the different ways you can connect with Jeff, though the best one is just JeffBajorek.com
Thanks for listening and we’ll be back tomorrow with a tip from Deb Calvert.