101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 98:
GO ON FOOT
I’ve mentioned sales productivity elsewhere. It is a truism that the greater the amount of time you spend – primarily face to face – with customers, the greater the chance of your concluding deals and producing business. Yet there are so many hazards that can easily act to dilute productivity and reduce time spent with customers. Administration is just one factor.
If you see five customers each working day (and some see fewer), then given about 220 working days in the year (allowing for holidays, sickness, sales meeting, and more), you make not many more than 1,000 calls a year – and there is a great deal to do in that time, no doubt. It’s a scary thought.
Idea
From those organization with the fittest sales people …
There is one factor almost guaranteed to increase productivity, and yet shunned by some (many?) sales people. That is to do with cars. Given the increasingly slow speed of traffic in most major cities, sales people the world over spend more and more of their time travelling. The spent in the car is essentially non-productive. It might seem that there is comparatively little to be done about this, but some companies have banned sales people from moving around by car in core city centres. It may be a revolutionary, but you should consider getting out of the car and walking.
In practice
- Some organizations that suggest or demand this expect to see a receipt for a car park. This acts as proof that sales people really are walking (or jumping on a bus perhaps) from one central contact to another. Although it often seems quicker to drive, many are surprised by how much time this saves.
- This is not always a good idea (some sales people simply have too much to carry), but for their working days. And traffic seems to get worse day by day.