How to Beat Parkinson’s Law
Before I describe what Parkinson’s Law is, let me give you an example that you might be able to relate to. If you give yourself the whole day to clean out the garage… congratulations, you’ve just booked yourself a full-day event. Coffee breaks. Rediscovering old hockey sticks. “Organizing” a box of wires you’ll never use […]
Interruptions Are Killing Your Sales More Than You Think!
I’ve read several studies over the years about interruptions in the workplace and how they affect our productivity. I, like many sales professionals, enjoyed the fast pace that interruptions created without knowing how much it was hurting my ability to get my key tasks done. All the studies point to the same thing — that […]
Time Management for Sales Pros: Stop Chasing Your Own Tail!
Sales professionals are a special breed—part detective, part therapist, and 100% magician when it comes to making deals happen. But even the best closers can struggle with time management, which often feels like juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle. Missed follow-ups, endless emails, and meetings that could’ve been emails—sound familiar? The secret to sales […]
How to Manage Interruptions
Interruptions are one of the biggest time suckers for most of us.
Want to stop procrastinating? . . . Read this now!
By Michael Caron, President, Northbound Sales Congratulations for reading this and not putting it off! Procrastination has been appropriately called the “silent killer of careers,” yet few people have ever had formal training on how to overcome this immensely costly habit. While managing this problem is a constant challenge to me, I have learned some […]
The Ultimate Productivity Hack is Saying No
Last week’s post on time management got some really good interest even though managing our time is not a technical selling skill. This week’s post is a follow-up strategy. Frankly, most sales people, including myself don’t come by time management naturally because of our personality type. That’s why, at Northbound, time management is almost always […]
Do You Know Your Time Quadrants?
Knowing where your time is being used will allow you to spend more time on the sales activities that make you money. I don’t read many books but at least I try to implement good ideas from the ones I do get around to reading. One of the oldest books on my shelf that […]
Looking for a high R.O.I.? How about 400% from time management?
These days, anything with a big positive return on investment sounds too good to be true. We’re not talking about financial investments per se here but rather something just as valuable—your time management. And more accurately, we should say R.O.T.I. which means Return On Time Invested. Specifically, the investment is the fifteen minutes that you can use […]
4 Biggest Time Wasters for Salespeople
Gain up to 30 minutes extra productivity per day by eliminating these. Show me a sales professional in the top 10% of their industry and I’ll show you a person who is in the top 10% at time management. Unfortunately, as salespeople, we are hard wired to be poor at juggling priorities and tasks. Studies show […]
Do You Procrastinate? Don’t Put Off Reading This Article!
By Michael Caron, President, Northbound Sales Congratulations for reading this! Procrastination has been appropriately called the “silent killer of careers” yet few people have ever had formal training on how to overcome this immensely costly habit. All of us procrastinate to some extent but while managing this problem is a constant challenge to me, I have […]