Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 61: Protect the golden hours of B2B selling

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61: Protect the golden hours of B2B selling · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need a quick reminder that you need to use your selling time wisely?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jeb Blunt lays it on us very bluntly in Phonetical Prospecting.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bite-sized sales podcast, where we believe that you don't need to take time out of the field or off the phone stuck in a classroom to get great sales training, and that taking bite-sized steps each day to get better at your craft is the best way to improve your results.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and I'm using my 20 plus years in B2B sales to bring you simple, actionable ideas that you can use every day to help you get better.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is sponsored by Sales Bluebird.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us don't have time to keep up with the latest sales ideas and all the blogs, podcasts, news articles, YouTube posts every week.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sales Bluebird curates content from all these sources and gives you three mindset tips, three sales skills tips, and three sales leader tips once a week in your email inbox for free.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sign up right now at salesbluebird.com.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 61 of the podcast.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was told really early on in my career, probably the first year, that the one thing that we had the same amount of as salespeople is time.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And how we use it is probably the most important thing in our success.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can lose time quickly, we can't make it up, and we gotta make sure that we maximize our selling time.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Jeb Blunt talks about this in his book the in his book Fanatical Prospecting, and he calls it the golden hours.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let me read straight from the book.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: The single biggest challenge for salespeople is keeping non-revenue generating activities from interfering with the golden hours.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a challenge for many reasons, but let me make this crystal clear.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Salespeople get paid to sell.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Period.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: End of story.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whine and complain about all the stuff you've got to do if you like, but it will not change the fact that your job is to be interacting with qualified prospects during the golden hours and moving them into and through the pipeline.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if you're a salesperson and you're not doing the things that are directly related to selling during the golden hours, then you're not doing your job.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Top sales pros fiercely protect the golden hours.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: They say no a lot.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: When a fellow rep stops by to chat them up about the weekend or belly ache about a recent policy change, they do not engage.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: When managers and corporate staff attempt to dump busy work on them, they push back.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: The best reps put do not disturb signs on their doors when they are on prospecting blocks to keep distractors at bay.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your daily mission is simple.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Squeeze as much out of the golden hours as possible by managing that time wisely.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not prospecting, qualifying, information gathering, presenting, or closing during golden hours, you're hurting your career and your income and you're not doing your job.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's read straight from Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blunt.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think for many of us, this is probably more of a reminder than a revelation.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's an important reminder, right?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a sales manager right now, look at when you're scheduling your team calls and look at when you're scheduling your one-on-ones.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And are they slap-bang in the middle of golden selling hours in the morning or afternoon, or have you managed to tuck them away so you your interference in selling hours is minimized?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And also as sales reps, if we were to look back at the last week on our calendar and be very critical with ourselves, how often do we let these non-sales, direct sales activities, non-revenue revenue generating activities crowd our schedule?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is there stuff on there that if you're truly honest with yourself, you should have pushed off to lunchtime or evening or morning or sometime not in those prime selling hours, in the golden hours?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, for most of us, we've got some work to do.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've seen this a lot over my career.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have to remind myself again and again, don't let that stuff creep in and take up the time that it shouldn't be taking up.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So my action for you, if this resonates with you and you you think you do need to get better, one is recommit to the idea that there are golden hours.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, make the adjustments in your schedule so that you're not affected by these distractions.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, catch yourself, you know, when you're scheduling that thing or saying yes to an appointment that came in and it's not something that's going to generate revenue and it's in golden selling hours.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: See if you can move it out.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then fourthly, your best friend is time blocking, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you put in the time blocks for those high value activities, that's much harder for these other things to come in and take their place.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that, my rallying call is is uh let's rally back around the idea of golden hours.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this episode, the single most useful thing you could do to support this podcast is share it with your sales network.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It'll probably take you less than 20 seconds.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is click the share icon in your app right now and share it wide and far.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It will mean the world to me and it could make a difference to those you share it with.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I need your suggestions, please.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a topic you want me to cover or just want to get in touch, simply email me at upside at unstoppable.bo.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's upside at unstoppable.do.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And now to wrap up, training without implementation is just entertainment.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And pretty poor entertainment when I deliver it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you take action on what you learned today and keep getting it better and better each and every day.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Also, this world does not need more sales BS.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So please don't create any more.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Be great at the fundamentals, be honest, be real, be yourself, just do not BS.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, I'm signing off as the great Joe Sexton Wood by saying gone to sell.