I’m a fan of David Bach’s financial books. In his masterpiece,Automatic Millionaire, he talks about the “latte factor”. The premise is that people will often say that they don’t make enough money to save, but if you look deeper it is because they are wasting money in other areas of their life. Like on latte’s at Starbucks.

Don’t get me wrong, I get that Starbucks is more than the coffee. It’s also about the experience. It’s a hip place to hold a meeting or perhaps work on planning for your next sales call. The question is have you considered the personal financial impact that your daily specialty coffee habit can have?  Bach shows people how a $4.00 a day cup of coffee could be a huge boost to their savings account over time. Do the math yourself.  It’s about $1,000 for coffee 5 days a week throughout the year. What if you put that money in a money market account with compound interest…well, you need to read David’s book to see where you’d be in 5, 10 and 20 years.

What does this have to do with sales?

The same “latte factor” analogy can be applied to evaluting the effectivesness of your lead generation efforts. Daily sales activities can be broken down and quantified into real dollars. Determine the “cost per sales hour” (CPSH) for all members of your sales team. You need to know exactly how much actual selling time is required to achieve revenue goals. Sales managers often overlook the importance of knowing the CPSH, but until they do, they won’t truly understand the impact of wasted time on the sales bottom line. It is expensive when sales people are not maximizing their lead generation time to the fullest.

Do a little digging

It can be easy to fall into a comfortable routine of simply networking at local business associations and chamber meetings. While these may be good, the best sales people do not assume. They also do not confuse activities with effectiveness. Attending a lot of “networking meetings” doesn’t necessarily mean that you are effectively generating leads and closing sales.

Here are a few of the questions that managers need to be asking their sales people:

• Where are you spending the most time and why?
• How many leads have come from your attendance?
• Have we closed any business as a direct result?
• What other networking opportunities could you be leveraging? Hint: social media, mastermind groups

Review sales networking activities carefully and often. Ironically the ROI of social media is often questioned; yet, these same sales professionals who question social media’s value waste time attending all the wrong networking events, but believe themselves to be successfully selling.

Determine your social sales latte factor. Figure out where your time needs to be invested elsewhere and watch those lead generation efforts start paying off!

In the rush, rush, rush that defines most businesses today, we are trained to cram every possible activity we can onto our calendars. The fine art of saying “no” is a masterful technique in and of itself, IF, you can pull it off that is. Often, we are at the mercy of others who have requests that demand our time, which we cannot ignore. Still, with all of this so-called multi-tasking going on, I wonder, are we really any more effective?

For years, we have been seduced into thinking that multi-tasking is a good thing. Sales people are given atta-boys for their ability to juggle multiple priorities at once. Sales managers praise their people for being able to take customer calls, do email and text all while taking a potty break. Nothing is more disconcerting than listening to someone take a business call from the bathroom stall next to you by the way. The reinforcement of this multi-tasking mania has now led to people texting and answering email on their iPhones and Blackberry’s while driving! Absolute madness.

Quite an industry has sprung up around this notion of “managing time”. The myth is that multi-tasking isn’t managing time, it is only wasting it. An August 2009 research report from Stanford University shows that so-called high achieving multi-taskers are only frying their brain. Guru’s far more experienced than me will tell you that time management has always been a myth. All of us have the same 24 hours in the day. The #1 key to social selling success comes from a single minded focus on the “right” priorities. Your objective is to focus on the one thing – the big rock – that you complete before moving on to the next. This is especially important as you integrate social media into your sales process. The idea is to save time not waste it!

As I talk to groups about social media and how to integrate it into their sales/networking approach, I always ask, “What are your top two or three concerns about using social media?” Predictably, someone always says, “I don’t have the time.” That attitude springs from the belief that you are “adding on” to what you already do now. In reality, you need to let something else go. Everyone has time wasters disguised as results driven activities hidden somewhere on their calendar. Many are hidden in plain sight.

Try this exercise. Write down how many face-to-face networking events you attended in the past month. Even if it’s 1 per week, you probably spent at least 3 hours when you include drive time plus the event time itself. That’s 12 hours – more than a full business day each month. Now consider your hourly billable rate and ask yourself if you secured enough clients from those activities to make it worth it. The answer – based on experience and the answers I receive from every group that I poll – will likely be a resounding no! Not even close. That’s why the effective use of social networking tools like LinkedIn is such a beautiful thing. Done right, you spend “less time” actually getting better results.

How we view time is in direct proportion to our attitude about time. Your peers, your competitors and your friends don’t have any more hours in the day than you do. It is all about how you use them. If you ever want to invest in finding out how you prioritize, I encourage you to check out our Time Mastery assessment. For as little as $31 and the investment of a 10-15 minutes, you will discover just how well you work with your daily 24 hour allotment.

Time management is a myth. How you choose to spend your time moment to moment is what counts!

In the rush, rush, rush that defines most businesses today, we are trained to cram every possible activity we can onto our calendars. The fine art of saying “no” is a masterful technique in and of itself, IF, you can pull it off that is. Often, we are at the mercy of others who have requests that demand our time, which we cannot ignore. Still, with all of this so-called multi-tasking going on, I wonder, are we really any more effective?

For years, we have been seduced into thinking that multi-tasking is a good thing. Sales people are given atta-boys for their ability to juggle multiple priorities at once. Sales managers praise their people for being able to take customer calls, do email and text all while taking a potty break. Nothing is more disconcerting than listening to someone take a business call from the bathroom stall next to you by the way. The reinforcement of this multi-tasking mania has now led to people texting and answering email on their iPhones and Blackberry’s while driving! Absolute madness.

Quite an industry has sprung up around this notion of “managing time”. The myth is that multi-tasking isn’t managing time, it is only wasting it. An August 2009 research report from Stanford University shows that so-called high achieving multi-taskers are only frying their brain. Guru’s far more experienced than me will tell you that time management has always been a myth. All of us have the same 24 hours in the day. The #1 key to social selling success comes from a single minded focus on the “right” priorities. Your objective is to focus on the one thing – the big rock – that you complete before moving on to the next. This is especially important as you integrate social media into your sales process. The idea is to save time not waste it!

As I talk to groups about social media and how to integrate it into their sales/networking approach, I always ask, “What are your top two or three concerns about using social media?” Predictably, someone always says, “I don’t have the time.” That attitude springs from the belief that you are “adding on” to what you already do now. In reality, you need to let something else go. Everyone has time wasters disguised as results driven activities hidden somewhere on their calendar. Many are hidden in plain sight.

Try this exercise. Write down how many face-to-face networking events you attended in the past month. Even if it’s 1 per week, you probably spent at least 3 hours when you include drive time plus the event time itself. That’s 12 hours – more than a full business day each month. Now consider your hourly billable rate and ask yourself if you secured enough clients from those activities to make it worth it. The answer – based on experience and the answers I receive from every group that I poll – will likely be a resounding no! Not even close. That’s why the effective use of social networking tools like LinkedIn is such a beautiful thing. Done right, you spend “less time” actually getting better results.

How we view time is in direct proportion to our attitude about time. Your peers, your competitors and your friends don’t have any more hours in the day than you do. It is all about how you use them. If you ever want to invest in finding out how you prioritize, I encourage you to check out our Time Mastery assessment. For as little as $31 and the investment of a 10-15 minutes, you will discover just how well you work with your daily 24 hour allotment.

Time management is a myth. How you choose to spend your time moment to moment is what counts!

A common complaint from social media resistors is that they “don’t have time” for all of this technology stuff. Reading my post right now, you might be saying to yourself…exactly. No time – that’s why I’m not there. In the only way that I know how to say it – you are already being left behind! Make time for the important.

Making Time

I know, I know. You are absolutely positive that 100% of your business time is used to upmost effectiveness each and every day. But on the off chance that you are like pretty much every other human being I’ve ever met, everyone has time wasters on their calendar. Everyone! Evaluate your time usage for the next week, and I promise you the results will be surprising.

What do you need to do to get started?

Clock what you do each business day in 15 min increments. It may be tough at first, because you won’t be used to tracking what you are doing. Once you get going, it becomes a habit.  Don’t overcomplicate the process though. It can be as simple as keeping a legal pad of paper with you to note it all down. If you’d like to have technology lend a helping hand, I recommend TDF Tracker for the i-Phone. TDF Tracker is an easy to use, powerful tool designed to keep track of time/expenses/mileage. I’m a new user and getting the hang of it. I love that I can track my time and email a weekly report to my client, as I receive a copy at the same time. No clumsy spreadsheets to handle. For purposes of this exercise, you would use TDF Tracker to note what you are spending time on and when. Your personalized report will tell all!

Once You Know

Clear the obvious “junk” from the calendar and block that time – RIGHT NOW! – to work on your social media/social networking knowledge and experience. Business communication has changed. Sales and marketing must adapt. New worker capabilities are required. If you want to get hired, do what Laura Gainor did to gain the attention of her next employer, Comet Branding. The story is quite something and a brilliant example of using social media to further your next career move.

We are nothing if not a society hell bent on cramming every possible activity we can onto the calendar. A few business people I know try to push more than one item into the same time slot. Does that make sense? Of course not.

For years we have been seduced into thinking that multi-tasking is a good thing. Employees are given atta-boys for their ability to juggle multiple priorities at once. Managers praise their people for being able to take customer calls, do email and text all while taking a potty break. Nothing is more disconcerting than listening to someone take a business call from the bathroom stall next to you by the way. The reinforcement of this multi-tasking mania has now led to people texting and answering email on their iPhones and Blackberry’s while driving! Am I the only one who thinks that these people should have their drivers license suspended…forever?

Quite an industry has sprung up around this notion of “managing time”. Multi-tasking isn’t managing time, it is only wasting it. An August 2009 research report from Stanford University shows that so-called high achieving multi-taskers are only frying their brain. Guru’s far more experienced than me will tell you that time management has always been a myth. All of us have the same 24 hours in the day. The #1 key to success in achieving our goals is a single minded focus on the “right” priorities. Your objective is to focus on the one thing – the big rock – that you complete before moving on to the next.

As I talk to groups about social media and how to integrate it into their sales/networking approach, I always ask, “What are your top two or three concerns about using social media?” Predictably, someone always says, “I don’t have the time.” That attitude springs from the belief that you are “adding on” to what you already do now. In reality, you need to let something else go. Everyone has time wasters disguised as results driven activities hidden somewhere on their calendar. Many are hidden in plain sight.

Try this exercise. Write down how many face-to-face networking events you attended in the past month. Even if it’s 1 per week, you probably spent at least 3 hours when you include drive time plus the event time itself. That’s 12 hours – more than a full business day each month. Now consider your hourly billable rate and ask yourself if you secured enough clients from those activities to make it worth it. The answer – based on experience and the answers I receive from every group that I poll – will likely be a resounding no! Not even close. That’s why the effective use of social networking tools like LinkedIn is such a beautiful thing. Done right, you spend “less time” actually getting better results.

How we view time is in direct proportion to our attitude about time. Your peers, your competitors and your friends don’t have any more hours in the day than you do. It is all about how you use them. If you ever want to invest in finding out how you prioritize, I encourage you to check out our Time Mastery assessment. For as little as $31 and the investment of a 10-15 minutes, you will discover just how well you work with your daily 24 hour allotment. Time management is a myth. How you choose to spend your time is what counts!