Simply put, productivity is the measure of what you accomplished versus how much of your resources you put into it.
For instance, someone who manufactures five products in the span of two hours can be considered more productive than someone who manufactured five products in the span of five hours.
Unfortunately, things are rarely so clear-cut.
Everyone wants to be productive, but they’re misled by the myth that to be more productive, you need to work harder. You need to pour more input to get more output. The reality is that working smarter—instead of harder—is the best way to guarantee a boost in output without compromising input.
Here are some simple changes you can implement to directly affect your input, thereby improving your output.
Utilize Technology
Technology has come so far in the past decade or so, it would be downright silly not to use it.
The best salespeople know how to fully utilize the tools and tech available to them to easily achieve better results. And while technology will never trump talent and hard work, it can certainly give your sales executives an advantage.
By using technology to take care of the mindless, mundane tasks that don’t directly affect your revenue in any way, you can focus all your time and energy on the ones that do.
However, just remember: The right tools can shave hours off of regular, everyday tasks through automation or organization—depending on which ones you use, and for what purpose. But just as there are tools that can boost your productivity, there are apps and programs out there that do the exact opposite. When we start depending on these tools for something other than direct selling, they become time sucks.
Do Not Multitask
A lot of us believe ourselves capable of multitasking. In fact, we pride ourselves on it. The ability to read emails while replying to Facebook messages and preparing sales sheets is lauded among salespeople and entrepreneurs.
However, the reality is that it’s not actually happening.
Multitasking is, at best, glorified “serial tasking.” You are not, in fact, doing multiple tasks at once. You are actually performing separate tasks in shorter periods of time, essentially stopping one task after a few seconds or minutes of performance to start another. It’s a loop that, when done often enough, makes you feel like you’re doing it all at once.
Serial tasking is not something you want to get into the habit of doing, either. It actually kills productivity.
What happens is that your mind isn’t 100% focused on the task you’re doing. Consequently, this means several things: it might take you longer to finish it, you might make more mistakes, or it might not be done to the best of your ability.
Every time you switch to another task before completing the first one, you actually waste more time.
Focus on Quality
A lot of managers make the mistake of focusing on their team’s overall lead quantity rather than quality.
However, chasing down all these unsure leads can be quite draining, both in terms of time and energy.
Poor quality leads rarely pan out. When they do, the resulting sale is often not worth the effort. Most managers fail to realize this, and instead prioritize the numbers. It comes off as them essentially preferring 5,000 potential leads instead of 500 sure sales.
Even if both yield the same results, finding 500 people in a sea of 5,000 is obviously not the most productive way to spend your time.
About The Author
As CEO, Sean leads the organization to build lasting relationships with company leaders within the direct selling industry and provide quality service to meet the needs of clients. Sean also likes to spend time outdoors and traveling with his family.