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One of the worst habits to get into is becoming a Task Salesperson. A Task Salesperson loses sight of their sales goals and sales skills. They primarily focus on the mechanics of sales. This can happen to us without even knowing it.

I used to observe two polar-opposite sales representatives. One of them was incredibly well organized, a hurricane of activity and was under budget every month. It looked like he had everything under control but in reality needed a lot of sales help. The other one sat in a garbage dump cubicle reading her favorite sales blog, always seemed relaxed and blew out her sales budget every month. What was going on here? One of them was most likely focusing on the mechanics and tasks of sales while the other was focusing on the true goal of sales…developing relationships with customers.

“Be careful not to be a slave of what doesn’t matter in sales.”

Giving sales tasks too much priority will keep us busy but normally doesn’t make us a sales leader.

Task Salespersons have these habits:

-Respond to every proposal and lead that is sent their direction
-Spend three days on a proposal that could be done in four hours
-Contact 100 prospects each day regardless of the quality of the leads
-Spend a minimum of two hours preparing for each customer appointment
-Spend 90% of their time on administrative functions
-Their sales manager loves the quality and penmanship of their required sales reports
-Never seeks sales tips from his or her peers and refuses all sales help

Goal Oriented Salespersons have these habits:

-Ensure they have a relationship with a company before investing time in them
-Are always prospecting but primarily to referrals and other qualified leads
-Do only mandatory administrative duties that aren’t directly related to sales
-Are always getting screamed at by their sales manager for past due sales reports
-Relationships are first, administrative perfection is number two
-Are consistently hitting and exceeding their sales objectives
-Welcome any and all sales advice and are open to any sales tip given to them

Remember, no sales representative is ever paid more or promoted simply for their administrative abilities. Be careful not to be a slave of what doesn’t matter in sales. What matters is customer relationships.

Related links: Your Personality is What the Customers Wants to See, Free Sales Tips: Don’t lose sight of this when selling, The Attributes of an Unsuccessful Salesperson

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Tags: habits

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