©Suzi Pomerantz. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Seal the Deal: The Essential Mindsets for Growing Your Professional Services Business
The following article was contributed by: http://sealthedealsuccesskit.com/
As you explore how you currently go about organizing your time as it pertains to business development, don’t concern yourself with recommended percentages or the right way of doing it … simply observe and record how you are actually already organizing your time and see what shows up for you.
1. What percentage of your time is dedicated to sales activities as distinct from networking and marketing activities?
2. Of that percentage, what percentage of your time do you spend in each of the following:
_____Identifying targets _____Setting appointments
_____Client meetings _____Follow up _____Professional development _____Other:______________ (Total should be 100%)
3. How would you prioritize and rank the activities in item 2 above? List in order of importance below:
Practice Tips: Planning Your Week
1. Decide what in your life is most important to you and make certain to allocate time to those items first.
2. Allocate time to make calls to set appointments. (How many calls does it take you to set up one appointment? How many appointments do you want to set up for each week? How many calls does that mean you have to make each day? How long will it take you to make those calls?)
3. Schedule any sales appointments you have set for yourself. (Include travel time and plan to arrive 5-10 minutes early. Include any preparation time you may need to prepare for the meeting).
4. Allocate time for target research, proposal development, letter writing, card- sending, and other marketing correspondence.
5. Allocate time for follow up calls or account servicing activities.
6. Allocate time for special projects and tasks that are non-sales or service related activities (i.e., networking meetings, marketing activities, expense reports, administrative duties, paperwork, other projects and billable work).