Focus is Key: How to Manage Your Week for Maximum Impact in a Sales Process

Managing my week has always been a challenge, especially when it comes to sales. There are so many steps involved, from reacting to inquiries to closing deals, and dependencies can slow things down. Waiting on a client’s response can be frustrating, and it’s easy to lose focus and momentum. Here is how I apply the Personal Agility System manage and visualize my sales process.

Make it easy to do the right thing

The idea behind Personal Agility is to make it easy to identify what you want to work on.  Clarity of purpose is key! “What Really Matters” defines the big picture.  The triage of Celebrate and Choose helps you identify the short list of important tasks for the week. The *Today* column of your PAS Priorities Map helps you focus on the most important task of the day.

Sales is a process with multiple steps, and some involve waiting. When action is possible, the quicker the better. In my case: the process has six steps:

1. Lead
2. Free Consultation (appointment)
3. Strategy Session (appointment)
4. Write Quote
5. Acceptance (deadline)
6. Kick-Off. Second.

At each step of the way, I might be waiting for something, the task could be waiting on me, or I’m actually working on it.

The idea is still to make it easy to identify what I want to work on. A simple waiting-working-done is not going to cut it. How do I figure out what goes in the “Today” column?

I created a PAS Priorities Map to manage the sales process. Like any PAS Priorities Map, my Sales Map has a What Really Matters column to remind me of my priorities.

Inquires placed on my website automatically land in the “Leads” column. Usually, I react to them by scheduling a Consultation.

Each step is represented by two columns, one on top of the other. The top one corresponds to waiting on me, meaning I can do something. The bottom one is waiting on something else, like an appointment or a response. These are things I can’t work on it, even if I wanted to. But, if a deadline expires, I want to be notified so I can get active.

Choosing the right task

If I can kick off a project, I kick it off. If I can write an offer, write the offer. Etc. The right most task that I can do goes in the today column. Ideally the top columns are mostly empty, and sales task move from “lead” to “successfully completed” quickly.

In conclusion, managing a sales process can be challenging, but by applying Personal Agility principles, you can streamline your workflow and increase your focus, efficiency, and chances of success.

By clarifying what really matters, prioritizing tasks in the Today column, and using a Sales Priorities Map to manage the sales process, you can keep momentum and move deals forward.

Remember, the key is to focus on what you can control and be proactive in managing dependencies. With these tools and techniques, you can maximize your impact and achieve your sales goals. Try implementing these strategies in your own workflow and see the difference it can make!