subject: Too Busy To Sell? [print this page] Too Busy To Sell? Too Busy To Sell?
During my days as an insurance agent on the road I often found it challenging to balance all the requirements of the job. Sales meetings, staff meetings, servicing clients, preparing for renewals, reviewing quotes, and presenting renewals. I did not struggle with all of these things because I have poor time management skills (that is actually one of my strengths) I struggled with all of these things because I tried to complete all the tasks effectively without sacrificing any sales time. Sacrificing sales time will eventually lead to less new business, which means less income.
So I invested more time to make sure I completed all the critical items of the job and still hit the phones to find some new prospects. Most days were filled with meetings, renewals and travel. Sales time was regularly an evening affair. Cold calls and night meetings Monday through Thursday. A typical day was 7am to 9pm. However, this quickly led to 60+ hour weeks, high stress and too much time away from my wife. Other than missing my wife, I never really minded this schedule and workload. But someday soon we will have kids, and leaving before they wake up and coming home after they are in bed is not going to be acceptable. Fortunately, I was offered an opportunity to change.
Now I am working with a boutique, virtual organization. We are highly flexible, highly responsive and do not suffer from any of the lethargic processes of a traditional company. A few weeks ago, I mentioned to our CEO that I was feeling some time compression and that it was creeping into my sales time. By the end of the day we had re-allocated our resources and responsibilities and solved the issuebefore it became a problem. Now we anticipate reaching record numbers in the 4th quarter.
As your client base grows, it is easy to become spread thin over your vast array of responsibilities. Find a way to manage your business that allows you to remain focused on closing business and never become too busy to sell. And when possible, leverage the new virtual sales and marketing tools now available to all agents and agencies.
