101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 70:
EN ROUTE TO SUCCESS
Productivity is important, and the nature of a field sales job dictates that there is inevitably some idle time. There’s time spent travelling to the customer (and trying to find some where to park), time ahead of a meeting waiting for people in their reception areas, and so on. At worst sales people can work hard and still find that only 20- 25 percent of their working time is actually spent face to face with customers; it goes with the territory. Enough said, or is there?
Idea
For those with a company car…
Given the problem of productivity, you should at least consider the way you work and see what possibilities this suggests for productivity improvement. One example that applies to anyone driving to customers makes a good point. How far do you drive each year? Or perhaps more relevantly, given today’s traffic conditions, how long do you spend in the car? Listening to the radio or to music may dull the tedium of a long journey, but it will not help you sell more. You could spend some of the time doing something more useful (and much safer than talking on a mobile phone, which must be hands-free if you use it in the car at all)
Virtually all cars have tape or CD player in them, and a wealth of useful materials is available in this form. Specifically:
- Some companies issues newsletters or product briefings or training in this form. (If not, maybe you should suggest it).
- A variety of business books and magazines are available too.
- Sales training material is also available, including audio seminar “tutorials”, case studies, and inspirational.
In practice
- Time spent listening to such material can be useful, interesting, and stress-busting (making you forget that traffic jam about can do nothing). It can provide a constructive moment, and even one useful thought sparked on a journey may pay dividends.
- Keep a notepad handy too (but wait until you stop to records ideas). If you run out of this kind of material, maybe you should consider a long-term project. For example, you could learn a language. Just press the “play” button and away you go.