by Dave Kahle
Effective time management is one of the greatest
challenges for businesspeople today, and especially critical for sales managers.
Our
rapidly changing world is awash with information and distractions. We all l have
too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. I is easy to allow our days to be frittered
away with distractions and things to do. We can easily spend a day being very busy and
accomplish nothing.
Our
ability to create productive, as opposed to busy, days is critical to our
success. It’s time to get serious
about time management.
Ultimately,
time management is about doing more of the most important things and less of
the unimportant things. That implies, of
course, that you know what ‘important “ is.
And
that brings us to creating goals. Defining
what is important is the primary benefit of setting goals. So, the first step to effective time
management is creating annual goals.
What is important
A set
of goals defines what is important, and by implication, what is not.
The
purpose of the goal is not necessarily to meet the goal.
It is
to change our behavior. It forces us to
prioritize what is important and then to focus our behavior on those things. When you create a set of goals, you survey
your life and job and consider all of the possible things you could do. You then methodically and intentionally
select those categories of activity that are most important. And those most important things emerge as
goals.
So, setting
goals is an exercise in determining what is important. Annual goals allow you the flexibility of
modifying what is important from one year to the next, as you and your
circumstances change.
When
you set goals, you think deeply about something
once a year, and then you don’t need to think about it again. You are free to
focus on implementing the action the goals describe.
Guidelines
A set
of goals provides you with a measuring tape by which to compare and judge every
potential action. Goals put guardrails
around our actions, allowing us to make decisions with little hesitation because we have already
thought about it deeply. For example, if you want to lose 30 pounds, when you
are offered a double scoop of chocolate ice cream, you can use your goal to
influence the decision. It is easier to say NO because you already made the
decision when you set your weight loss goal.
You
may have said, for example, that one goal is to spend a day every month with
each salesperson. When the end of the
month is quickly approaching, and you have a choice of spending time in the
office and leaving early or spending the day with a salesperson who has been
neglected all month, your decision should be obvious. You said it was important to you, and you
committed to it. View your options through the lens of your goal, and the
decision is easy.
Benchmarks
Goals
provide a benchmark for you to periodically assess your progress and make
mid-course corrections. If you said you
wanted your team to create ten new customers this year, and it’s June and you
have only one new customer, clearly something has to change. You need to take
some kind of action. That issue would
probably not present itself had you not committed to the goal of ten.
In
that way, goals are an effective precursor to proactive action.
Truly,
a set of well designed, well written annual goals is the starting point to
effective time management. if you want
to become more effective at managing your time, start with a set of annual
goals.
Additional Content for Goal-Setting
Goals in an uincertain economy
A nuanced approach to goal setting — FOFS
Podcast – A fresh, nuanced approach to setting goals
Podcasts – Set Goals, Master Your Time
Podcasts — Turning Goals Into Growth: A Playbook for Sales Managers
Goal Setting for Personal Improvement
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Related Resources
https://davekahle.pink-account.com/sales-leaders-q-a-motivating-the-sales-force/
https://davekahle.pink-account.com/business-model-leadership-character/
https://davekahle.pink-account.com/do-you-want-to-become-a-sales-manager/
