Forget  sales training. Instead, focus on a highly neglected area of managing and coaching: Getting your people to treasure the precious value of time. 

Let’s look at some unbreakable rules about time, and then see how to embed them into your company selling culture. Don’t be surprised when people point out that you’ve begun to boost revenue, without additional sales training. 

• Rule #1: Everybody has the same amount of time 24 hours per day. Who on your team uses their time most wisely? Copy them! Emulate their tactics for managing behaviors and relationships.

   

• Rule #2: Time cannot wait for us. You let it pass away, or make full use of it. Where do you waste my time? Where do you lose opportunities to contact more buyers? Are you doing paperwork and non-selling activities when the prospects are most easy to reach? Adjust your workload accordingly.

   

• Rule #3: Time cannot be stored and put to future use. Do you sometimes foolishly think you can get around to it later? If so, this points to prioritization problems—something well-worth addressing and managing.

   

• Rule #4: Everything we do involves expenditure of time. Wow, that’s kind of a scary thought, but true. This is where you need to lock onto that word TREASURE: You need to treasure your time and get more done, during the day when my efforts are committed to my career, without distraction.

   

• Rule #5: Time is costly. You can actually quantify this three-word killer statement. Say you make 40 phone calls a day and can increase it to 60. What does a 5 percent spike in your activity do to your commissions? In contrast, what have you been losing by not respecting the costliness of time? 

The great sellers get the importance of time. They are ruthless about eliminating time-wasters (both people and activities). They are relentless about applying the concept of boundaries. They are rock-solid in getting more done, much more done, in a day, than average team members. Here are some quick ideas on how to focus on apply each rule to each of your salespeople. 

I strongly suggest you use the subject of time as a “Monday Morning Meeting” topic for your team. Present each of the five rules, then have your salespeople identify (perhaps in five groups) the impact or consequence of ignoring each one. Of course, you’ll leave out my five tips and let them develop their own. 

You will end up with some heavy-duty language to share and carve into your selling culture. And your team’s development of the benefits of respecting time, as well as the problems with ignoring it, will give them ownership of the lessons learned—a much better technique than just teaching what I’ve summarized here. 

What’s next? Will you create a poster or personal notes on the issue of time? Regular reminders? Perhaps it’s something to put into your CRM? 

Back to our original thought: Forget sales training. When you do train or manage sales team members, please remember to spend some time on time.