What’s Your Salesperson Daily Schedule? [Sales Habits!]

What is the most valuable resource you have as a salesperson or business owner?

The answer, of course, is your time.

You’ve only got 24 hours in a day, and you’ve got to sleep a little…so your time is really the most valuable resource you have. Even so, most salespeople spend their days as if they have unlimited amounts of time.

If you ever feel like you’re running out of time at the end of each day, that’s because you are. The only solution is to create and follow the best salesperson daily schedule for you, to maximize your time.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to build the ideal salesperson daily schedule by focusing on 5 key sales habits. Check it out:

1. Remove non-sales clutter.

One of my sales mentors always used to say that salespeople should only be doing activities that get us paid. Everything else that fills up our workday—literally anything that’s not helping us to actually make money—is just clutter. That’s why the first key habit for an ideal salesperson daily schedule is simply to remove all non-sales clutter from your routine.

If you’re not on the phone, on a Zoom, or face-to-face with a prospect, or working on a proposal for a prospect—then don’t do it.

All that other operational stuff only leads to being pulled in other directions. You’ve got to get that stuff off your table so you can spend all of your time on the things that get you paid.

Because let’s face it, right now you’re probably spending three or four hours a day on the activities that actually make you money. If you increase that number to six, seven, or eight hours a day, suddenly you’re doubling the amount of time you’re actually spending on sales. You’re doubling your productivity.

Removing all of the non-sales clutter from your calendar is the first key to building your ideal salesperson daily schedule. Making this a habit will make you more money, plain and simple.

2. Don’t say yes to people.

Now, I’m not telling you to be a jerk to people. But I am telling you to stop saying yes to every favor. Most salespeople are natural people-pleasers. But you need to get out of the habit of wanting to please anyone and everyone who comes your way. Only say yes to people who are likely to be good prospects.

All of those other people—whether they’re people in your organization just asking you for a favor, or a random prospect who you’re not even sure is qualified asking you to do something for them—should no longer get an automatic yes from you. Instead, remind yourself that saying yes to everyone is keeping you from doing what has to be done to actually make money during your day.

I was just reading a book about George Washington, and I learned that he spent a huge part of his day just responding to letters from everyday people. I wish I could go back in time and tell him, “George! Stop responding to all these letters—and focus on being the first president of the United States!”

Be ruthless with your time—it’s the single most important part of your salesperson daily schedule. Guard your time. Say no to people way more often. Get used to not saying yes to everyone who comes your way.

3. Use tech to leverage your time.

This is really a relatively newer idea in sales, but there are some incredible technologies out there that allow you to essentially replicate yourself and leverage your time in a much more efficient way.

A really good example of this is cold email. For every email that you send, you can manually type it up—or you can leverage cold email automation with high levels of personalization to send high-quality emails, leveraging the automation to significantly save your time.

The habit of using tech to leverage your time is crucial to building an effective salesperson daily schedule whether you use email or the phone to reach out to your prospects. Let’s say you make phone calls all day long. You can manually dial each call, and take a break in between each one, making 10 to 20 dials an hour…or, you can leverage a power dialer, which is one of the greatest dialing technologies that exists today, enabling you to make up to 80 or 90 dials an hour. Use technology like this to leverage your time as much as possible.

If you’re doing manual, time-consuming activities, chances are that you could be leveraging technology to be more efficient with your daily schedule.

4. Have a virtual assistant.

These days, having a virtual assistant is more accessible than you might think. There are sites like Upwork.com where you can find someone to do the sales grunt work for you at $5 to $10 an hour. By sales grunt work, I mean all that prospect research you’re currently doing, or any other operational, administrative, or manual labor that’s slowing down your daily schedule, pulling you away from actually being in front of prospects.

Outsource all of the slow, laborious work at a really low hourly rate so you can spend all of your time in front of the prospects that you want to be in front of. Having a virtual assistant is absolutely critical. Whether you’re a business owner or even an everyday salesperson, you can find a way to do this. If you are making $30, $40, or $50 an hour, then outsourcing some of that grunt work to someone else for $5 an hour will have a huge knock-on effect and allow you to make a lot more money in commissions.

5. Only do what makes you money.

I’ve already talked about this, but it’s so important that it gets another shout-out. The most important key to having an effective salesperson daily schedule is to get in the habit of only doing what makes you money. Period. You’ve got to focus only on what makes you money. The more ruthless you are in cutting the clutter out of your work routine, the more hyper-focused you are on only doing what makes you money, the more money you will actually make.

And by the way, the data shows this, too. Most salespeople only spend about 20% to 30% of their time on true sales-related activities every day. This is terrible, because it means that the vast majority of their time is spent not doing anything to provide for their families in the first place.

It’s like if we were hunter-gatherers, but we spent six out of the eight hours of our hunting time just skipping rocks at the beach. Maybe that’s fun, but it’s not helping us feed our family. We’ve got to stop doing all of those other things that are pulling us away from what makes us money.

So there you have it. Now you know the keys to your salesperson daily schedule and the sales habits to get you to a better routine. Which of these ideas did you find most useful for improving your sales schedule? Be sure to share below in the comment section to get involved in the conversation.

More Key Sales Habits to add to your Salesperson Daily Schedule…

Most salespeople are asking the wrong question.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a salesperson ask me, “What is the secret to success in sales?”

This question implies there’s one big thing you can do to succeed in sales—but that’s just not the case.

Instead, superstar salespeople are doing little things over and over each day in order to close massive sales and close more sales than the average salesperson.

In other words, it’s the structure of the daily habits of successful salespeople that matters far more than any one secret strategy.

That’s why 50% of salespeople from high-performing sales organizations report that they have structured sales processes, compared to just 28% of salespeople from underperforming sales organizations.

The small habits of successful salespeople add up to big success.

Learn those habits, make them a part of your daily routine, and you’ll quickly rise to the top of your industry.

I’ve worked with thousands of salespeople across all industries, and I’ve found exactly which habits of successful salespeople show up again and again.

If you’ve been looking for a big secret strategy to sales success, it’s time to shift your thinking.

Check out this video and article to discover those habits of successful salespeople and learn how you can make them part of your routine.

Why the Daily Habits of Successful Salespeople Matter

Daily sales habits are mission critical.

Salespeople love to ask me about sales techniques they can use to be more successful in sales.

But selling isn’t just about using the right techniques.

It’s also about those daily sales habits that salespeople repeat over and over again to achieve sales success.

Having good sales techniques is important, but it’s the little tasks you complete each and every day that determine whether or not you’ll become a superstar salesperson.

In my work with hundreds of top salespeople, I’ve noticed some very powerful trends when it comes to daily sales habits.

In fact, it’s amazing to me that more salespeople don’t follow these proven habits.

Keep reading to discover the daily sales habits of successful salespeople.

6. Make sales calls early in the day.

The vast majority of salespeople wait until 10 a.m. to make their first calls of the day—mostly because this is comfortable.

I get it. You like to check your email and drink a few coffees before picking up the phone.

Unfortunately, this is a weak mindset and a bad sales approach, so it’s certainly not one of the daily sales habits of successful salespeople.

For one thing, 10 a.m. is when all your competitors are hopping on the phones, too.

If you’re making calls at the same time as everyone else, you’re just blending in with the crowd.

Plus, high-level prospects are way too busy to talk to you at 10 a.m, so you’re going to get stuck talking to a gatekeeper.

This is why top salespeople make calls when they first get into the office—usually very early in the day.

Not only does it show a strong mental game to get started right away, but your high-level prospects are usually far less busy at 7 a.m. than they are by 10 a.m.

Make sales calls early in the day to practice one of the most important habits of successful salespeople.

7. Get face-to-face to close the sale.

Now, I understand it’s all the rage to try to sell virtually to prospects.

Most salespeople are trying to do everything by phone or video chat and email.

There’s certainly some merit to getting really good at phone sales, but if you want to close massive sales with big companies, you should be getting face-to-face with prospects.

Even getting on a plane for a well-qualified prospect is a great use of time and resources.

After all, if you want a prospect to invest in your offering, you first have to show them that you care about what they care about—what’s going on in their world.

Top salespeople know that face-to-face interactions are far more likely to lead to a close, so in-person meetings are one of the most common habits of successful salespeople.

If you’re still relying on phone and email to close sales, it’s time to make face-to-face meetings one of your daily sales habits.

8. Leverage introductions after every sale.

When you have a customer who’s thrilled with the outcome of your work, do you just pat yourself on the back? Or, do you ask for an introduction to other potential customers?

The answer to this question makes all the difference between being a top performer or merely mediocre.

One of the daily habits of successful salespeople is to ask for introductions constantly.

In fact, some superstar salespeople are even doing it multiple times a day.

An introduction is the best path to new business, so use every sale you make as an opportunity to leverage introductions.

By learning from the habits of successful salespeople and making introductions a daily priority, you’ll get more high quality leads and ultimately close more sales.

9. Make the most of the mobile office.

Once you start getting face-to-face with prospects, you’ll find that you’re on the road a lot.

Fortunately for you, one of the best habits of successful salespeople is to make the most of the mobile office.

Remember, there is no better way to live as a salesperson than to be out on the road as much as possible.

Mediocre salespeople spend most of their time in the office, but the best salespeople are in front of prospects and clients constantly. They live in their mobile office.

What’s cool is that in today’s world, you can actually accomplish almost everything administratively with just your cell phone and a laptop.

Figure out what tools you need to get work done on the road, then follow the habits of successful salespeople by making the most of the time spent traveling to close big sales.

10. Know when to say “no.”

People always think that this idea is really mean, but it’s not.

The hordes of mediocre salespeople are saying “yes” to everyone and everything. As a result, they’re overwhelmed because they simply have too much on their plate.

Then, of course, they don’t have time for real selling activity.

But one of the absolute best sales habits is to say “no” all the time.

Top-performing salespeople are saying “no” to putting out fires. They’re offloading operations to other people, and they’re saying “no” to tire kickers.

The best salespeople only do what makes them money, so saying “no” is one of the most important daily sales habits of successful salespeople that they share.

If a task, a favor, or an activity isn’t going to make you money, say “no.”

Only then will you have the time you need to use the best sales strategies and close more sales.

Conclusion: Adopt the Habits of Successful Salespeople to Crush the Competition

If you want to crush your competition in sales, you have to stop doing the same things everyone else is already doing.

Instead, success starts with following the habits of successful salespeople.

It’s the little things that superstar salespeople do each day that lead to huge success in sales, so learn what they do and follow their lead.

Start by making your sales calls early in the day.

This will ensure you are connecting with c-suite executives—not just their gatekeepers.

It also ensures you’re calling before your competition starts tying up the phone lines.

Next, make face-to-face meetings a priority.

Top salespeople know that in-person meetings are critical to closing big sales, so hop on a plane if that’s what it takes to close the deal.

Once you make a sale, remember to leverage introductions.

Introductions are the most powerful way to connect with new prospects, which is why they’re one of the daily sales habits of successful salespeople.

When you’re living on the road to meet with prospects and attend important prospecting events, make the most of the mobile office.

Your phone and laptop allow you to get administrative work done on-the-go, so take advantage of the technology.

Finally, learn how to say “no,” then say it constantly.

Don’t let tire kickers, small fires, and operational tasks that should be outsourced distract you from what matters most—closing sales and making money.

Instead, say “no” to any and every distraction so that you can say “yes” to important sales meetings with high-quality prospects and the daily habits that result in success.

So, there you have it. These are the daily sales habits of successful salespeople. I want to hear from you. Which of these ideas did you find most useful? Be sure to share below in the comments section to get involved in the conversation.