Juggle from the Top

Sure, all sales are different, with different sales cycles, seasons, closing rates, and sales duration. But, we all face similar challenges. Your industry may only call for closing 3 deals per year, or possibly 10 deals per day. I believe it's all relative. We all manage, balance, juggle, track multiple projects at once. Whether you balance 5 or 500 projects at once, the challenge remains. How do you stay on top of everything hot? How do you determine what's hot? How do you prioritize so that nothing falls through the cracks? The answer is.......you don't. Even the best lose track. It's a matter of positioning yourself so that the fewest amount of low priority opportunities are the only ones that are at risk of neglect. For successful, fast-paced salespeople, setting the expectation that nothing gets neglected is an unreasonable request. Just pick, choose, and place your priorities.

Managing projects is often associated with juggling........don't let any opportunities hit the floor. The better the salesperson......the more opportunities.......the more balls in the air to juggle. To prioritize, you must juggle from the top. Look at the big picture from above. Analyze each opportunity carefully, determine it's priority, and decide how much of your time should go into keeping this ball in the revolving circle. From the big picture, what does this opportunity mean? Is it key in you success, your development, your network of opportunities? If not, give it one last good toss and let it remove itself from the circulation. Choose the opportunities that are most important, and put all of your efforts there.

This is not a new or a foreign concept. The 80/20 rule has been preached for years. We just all need reminding, as we all lose focus. Juggling never gets easier, we just get better at it. Like anything, it takes practice, concentration, and your full attention.

** it's funny how the most important thing to me when eating on the road is convenience to my hotel. I'll pick a restaurant that I would normally never choose, if I can walk to it from my hotel. And I'll choose a hotel based on what restaurant I can walk to. Tonight is BJ's, I can work with this.