The Truth About Selling Steel: Time Management

For a large portion of my career I carried with me a daily reminder/calendar book full of notes and directives. The purpose of the calendar was to insure that I returned phone calls, got back with quotes and continued to build a book of new business on a regular and organized basis.

Too often I saw other salespeople focused on one or two accounts and not allocating time and resources toward prospecting, qualifying and building new business. Successful salespeople realize that things change, purchasing agents are replaced, companies are sold and business cycles have both ups and downs. It is the process of building new business and expanding relationships within existing business that will lead to ultimate success and security in the sales field.

The way I operated when I was actively selling steel was to make notations about my business conversations on a legal pad as the day progressed. At the conclusion of each conversation I would immediately turn to my calendar to schedule a follow-up. The calendar would also contain notes such as: follow-up quote (and the numbers quoted), did steel arrive on time, any quality issues, ask for quote, follow up to a specific conversation with the date referenced (which keyed me to go back and look at my notes), etc.

By the end of the day I could have 10 to 20 follow up appointments from the day’s conversations.

My work for the day was not done, however. Was I able to get to all of the calls scheduled for the day? If not, were those calls such that they could be transferred to another day? If not should I follow up with an email, note or voicemail to the client if I was unable to reach them letting them know I would contact them tomorrow or at a specific time and date?

The idea is to keep the customer involved and invested in me and my company as well as in the process. I found selling steel was much like selling encyclopedias (and I have used this analogy before) you are always qualifying the prospect throughout the process. You need to do this in your notes to the customer as well as in your phone calls. The way to do this is to ask a “yes” or “no” question put in a way that an invested prospect will respond in the affirmative.

One of the keys to being successful is spending the extra time after normal work hours to go over your plan for building new business. Part of that plan is evaluating prospects and choosing a range of contacts for the following day: brand new cold calls, qualified leads and those with whom you are following up with on past conversations as you continue to identify the need you and your company will be able to fill for the client. Each of these prospecting & qualification levels should be included in your daily schedule. This will keep you sharp and able to deal with tough questions from prospects and customers alike as they arise.

Many companies have moved to sales programs such as Salesforce or Sugar which allow you to put in notes, schedule follow-up contacts and to generate a ton of information about the company. Whether you use any of these programs, prefer to use Outlook, or the old fashion hard copy calendar, what is important is that you develop effective time management habits as they will pay dividends for you in the months and years ahead.

Steel Market Update has a Sales Training Program which can be conducted either at your facility for a large group or, as a separate workshop for individuals or companies who prefer to send single or small groups of sales and customer service people to a workshop. We are looking at conducting an open Sales Training Workshop in either June or July of this year. More details will follow in the following days.

If you would like to learn more about us developing a custom Sales Training, Sales & Marketing Training, Customer Service Training or Purchasing Training program for your company please contact me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or at: 800-432-3475