Discipline Is Key to Selling Expensive Things Successfully

Time Management

Two of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits are “Be Proactive” and “Put First Things First”. These are gems of time management for sales professionals. Successful solution sellers must be incredibly proactive and must be able to manage time wisely. Successful solution sellers are not stimulus - response account custodians. Successful solution sellers cultivate the ability to take charge, plan ahead, and focus their energy on things they can control instead of reacting to or worrying about things over which they have little or no control.

Mastering these two time management habits help you rise above the pounding day-to-day demands that distract amateur salespeople. Being proactive doesn’t mean being pushy, or insufferably aggressive. It means recognizing your responsibility to make things happen in the market place. It means anticipating, identifying, and solving your customer’s problems and, generating a fair profit in exchange for rendering great service. Putting first things first involves making wise choices about how you spend your time. It takes skill and great self-awareness to be able to devote serious time to important, but not urgent tasks. Successful solution sellers do this as second nature. Important but not urgent tasks are things like research, account strategy, call planning, relationship building, prospecting, training, reading, and physical exercise. On the other hand, email, ringing phones, meetings, drop-by’s and unopened mail have to be managed…and sometimes ignored! That takes discipline.