How to Excel in Sales Working from Home
Carole Mahoney is the founder and chief sales coach at Unbound Growth who has 13 years of experience working from home in sales. Though initially, it was challenging for her to get adjusted working from home and how to sell, she proved it by adopting certain tips consistently. She used to hate sales, now she loves it. Her overall experience makes us realize that nothing is impossible.
Carole has been working from home for a long time now and is absolutely pro at it. From her experience, we can learn how one can break down an entire day and make use of every second without any distraction. Here are the tips she has shared:
- Prioritize your time and have a routine
- Use a notebook instead of technology
- Write your plan and break it down into different milestones
- Have at least three priorities in a week
Prioritize your time and have a routine
This process is very important because it helps to balance the work-life. The work-life balance is a unicorn for everyone because it doesn’t exist. Hence, rather than trying to have a work-life balance where we trade one for the other, find a way that we can integrate these things. Now, there’s another reason of having a process to prioritize your time is important. When we have a process, when we have a routine, it reduces our anxiety and stress. And it also reduces the friction that we have to take those first steps toward something.
Use a notebook instead of technology
To have a routine, she notes it down with the help of a pen and notebook. Because there is no need for technology, an app, and a fancy thing like that. Technology distracts you. The advantage of using notebook and pen is you can work if you don’t have Internet or power for the time being.
Write your plan and break it down into different milestones
She writes her plan and she starts her yearly plan first. Then she breaks it down into quarterly milestones. Those quarterly milestones are then broken down into monthly milestones and priorities.
Making this plan takes about 15 minutes a day. It reduces your stress and anxiety. When you have reduced that stress and anxiety, it allows you to control your emotion, which is another thing that’s important for all of us right now in this uncertain times and scary time.
By doing that, you can be fully present at the moment with people, buyers and the clients that you are working with. Because of that Carole’s sales increased by nearly 70 % which is a massive amount.
Have at least 3 priorities in a week
The weekly plan is something that needs to be noted down in the notebook. She starts with a little sticky note planning the week. Once she identifies what are the top three things that have priority for the particular week, she dumps it out from the brain to paper. She prepares schedules from Monday through Friday. Each of those days is broken up into A.M. and p.m. She usually moves the presentation and workshops to A.M.
All these plans she does on Sunday night, and looks at her entire week and have a snapshot of where her priorities are going to be. It reduces her anxiety and stress of making things happen in this way.
AMA with Carole Mahoney
The following is excerpts from the AMA session with Carole.
How to create a perfect environment to work at home?
I created a space that has doors. Once it is closed, I can completely beat in this space and not be interrupted. It is very important to set up clear boundaries to focus and start the day as per plan.
How do you get motivated at all the day?
You can stay motivated with work breaks into your schedule. I typically block forty-five to 90 minutes for something to allow me to get into the flow and then I take 10 to 15 minutes to break where I get up and move around.
How do you modify your schedule for the rest of the week if any important events are coming in the upcoming days?
This is not set in stone. So by having the process, you know where you can move things around. If something comes up, then I know that I can either shorten the block or I can move that block to another day or another time.
Is time management a priority checklist for sales folks working from home?
Time management is a myth. So prioritizing how you’re going to spend your time is a better way to look at it, because it’s not like you can control everything that happens.
What are some of the productivity tools that you used to manage?
I love using call recording technology. But I encourage you to use the paper and pen method first. Once you’ve mastered that, then you can move into adding certain technologies. Sometimes, I just use a Google calendar.
Are remote workers more effective than office workers? Do you have some analysis around this?
Not everyone has the discipline to be able to work from home or to be able to do a process like this and work. I think there’s only around 40 to 41 % of salespeople who have been evaluated that they have the capabilities of working from home.
