Tips for Avoiding Time Wasters in Sales

Want to know why top performers close 2-3x more deals than average reps? It's not that they're smarter. It's that they've mastered deep work. After studying hundreds of high-performing sellers, I've found one consistent pattern: They protect their prime selling hours like their life depends on it. Most reps are drowning in shallow work, constantly switching between email, Slack, CRM updates, and social media. Each task switch costs you 23 minutes of focused energy. The result is a day filled with activity but empty of results. Here's how innovative sellers are implementing deep work: 1️⃣ Power Blocks They schedule 90-minute uninterrupted blocks for their most important selling activities. No email. No Slack. No phone. Just focused execution on revenue-generating work. 2️⃣ Energy Management They align their most important tasks with their peak energy hours. For most, that's 9-11 AM, not 3 PM after back-to-back meetings. 3️⃣ AI-Powered Prep They leverage AI to prepare for sales calls in half the time. "I feed the AI my call notes, recent news, and past objections. It gives me a hyper-focused prep document in 5 minutes instead of 45." 4️⃣ Elimination Before Optimization Before trying to get faster at tasks, they ask: "Does this task even need to exist?" You can't optimize what should be eliminated. 5️⃣ Digital Minimalism They turn off all notifications during selling hours. No Slack pings. No email popups. No LinkedIn alerts. The sellers implementing these practices aren't working more hours. They're just getting 3x more value from the hours they work. Most sales organizations obsess over activity metrics while ignoring the quality of focus behind them. What would happen if you protected just one 90-minute deep work block every day?

Most sales managers won't admit this, but it's smart to give up on prospects. I’m sure you’ve heard legends about the dogged salesperson who finally booked a meeting with their dream prospect after calling them every single week for a decade straight. Sadly, that sort of "pleasant persistence" is a misguided waste of time. They would have booked far more meetings had they used those extra dials on prospects who would have answered far more quickly. You only have only so many "sales calories" you can expend in a given day. If you care about booking meetings (and not just winning the activity leaderboard), draw lines of diminishing returns so you know when it's time to give up and move on to the next prospect: 📲 5 dials in 4 weeks: When you’ve literally cold called someone every week for a month straight, give them a rest for a month and try calling other prospects for now. ☎️ Stop after 2 voicemails: 2 voicemails is enough to reap the benefits of increasing your email replies. Don’t waste time leaving a 3rd. ✋ Avoid impassable gatekeepers: If they keep shutting you down, avoid them by calling your prospect’s cell, contacting them on other channels, or dialing at off-hours. 👻: If a prospect you've met is "ghosting" you, draw the line at 30 days. After absolutely nothing back from them in a month, move them to a quarterly drip sequence.  ____ "Giving up" on prospects doesn't mean you're giving up on selling. It simply means you're using your brain and allocating your limited effort into the prospects you have the best chance of winning. Do not take pride in endless followup to non-responsive prospects. Focus on effectiveness instead of blind persistence. 

Don't mistake "Activity" for "Progress" as an AE Activity could be: - Optional non-revenue generating activities - Handling something that's not your job to be a "team player" - Taking on internal tasks cause you don't protect your time - Spending more time than is needed organizing your data or schedule - Making 30 dials JUST to hit a number And I get it "Activity" feels good "Activity" feels busy But "Activity" could also be an excuse to keep you from your real job And "Activity" might even FEEL like you are building and growing But "Activity" is actually crushing you Being busy on the wrong things in your control AND convincing yourself it is a good thing is the killer combination So what can you do? - Be extremely selfish with your time: That junior AE wants to review a call together? Maybe, but they do have a manager for that - Align your time to outcomes: Doing a call blitz? Aim for conversations, not a dials number - Understand internal roles: if you shouldn't be handling billing conversations, pass them off! Your time is too valuable to go above and beyond here This is all about being intentional with the time you control and not taking the easy path presented to you And "Activity" is the easy path Aim for "Progress" #SalesMindset #EmotionalIntelligence #TimeManagement #CorrCompetencies