Sales professionals often have to juggle multiple responsibilities, from lead generation to customer follow-ups, and everything in between. However, with the right planning and time management strategies, you can make the most of your day and achieve your sales goals.

One of the most effective ways to manage your time as a salesperson is to plan your day in advance. By setting aside time at the beginning of each day (or better yet, the end of the prior day) to prioritize your tasks and create a schedule, you can ensure that you’re making the most of your time and focusing on the most important activities. This might include setting aside time for lead generation, customer follow-ups, and administrative tasks, as well as planning out your sales calls and meetings for the day.

Here, we’ll guide you through all you need to know to plan your day like a seasoned sales pro to maximize productivity and efficiency.

Fundamentals of Sales Day Planning

Effective sales day planning is crucial to achieving success in sales. It involves setting sales goals, prioritizing tasks, and managing time efficiently.

Differentiate between Outcomes and Activity Targets

All successful sales orgs have clear goals. These are typically organized around primary measurables like deals signed, bookings or revenue. Usually there will be team goals as well as individual quotas. It’s very important to differentiate between outcomes (which are not entirely in your control) and activities (which are within your control.

One of the most critical ingredients to your success will be to understand what it will take for you to hit your targets, expressed in specific activities that you have 100% control over.

To come up with those targets, you need to know a few key stats about your sales funnel. Starting with your sales goal or quota, calculate how many deals it will take to hit quota. To do this you’ll need to know your (or the team’s) average deal size.

From there, note the average sales cycle. That tells you how long from when you first identify an opportunity or lead, to when you expect a deal to close.

Then determine your historical close rate. For every 10 leads or opportunities, how many of them sign up to be customers?

Finally, estimate (based on data, whenever possible) how many leads you need to call before you identify an opportunity.

Daily Activity Target Example

Once you have all of this data, the goal is to work backwards from your target like this:

$100K bookings target / avg. deal size of $10K = 10 deals

If you call 100 prospects, it will typically yield 5 follow up calls / apts / demos (5%), and 2 of those will turn into opportunities (40%).

Opportunities close at a 20% rate, so to get to your deal target of 10, you need 50 opportunities.

To get 50 opportunities, you’ll need to do 125 demos (because 40% of them will turn into opportunities), and to get 125 demos, you’ll need to do 2500 phone calls (125 / 5%).

That may sound intimidating if you just take the number as a whole, but now consider that you have a quarter to make this happen.

A quarter consists of 13 weeks x 5 business days: 65 days. So, to make your 2500 calls in 65 days you need to make 39 calls a day. That’s not so bad! Factor in holidays and some cushion and let’s call it 50/day.

Don’t Forget to Factor in the Sales Cycle

Factoring in the sales cycle is also very important. If you start with an empty pipeline, it will be hard to make this all happen in one quarter. But if you’re part of a good sales org you’ll have a ramp up period to get started and set yourself up for success.

Going through this exercise is absolutely critical to your success — and to your time management.

Now you know that if you put in the work and hit your daily activity target of 50 calls per day, you WILL hit your quota. It’s just math. Of course, you need to constantly be monitoring your conversion rates to make sure that they are in line with your original assumptions. If they’re not, tweak your plan and adjust your activity targets as necessary.

Your sales math will look different. Maybe you have a team of SDRs who schedule meetings and demos on your behalf. That’s great, but you should still take responsibility for setting up your own demos, and you should make sure that you know your numbers.

The number of demos that your SDR schedules is out of your control. The calls that you make are in your control.

Your goals are typically sales targets (weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual). But activity targets are what you should use to plan your day.

Prioritizing Tasks

Once you have set your activity targets, you need to prioritize your tasks. Prioritizing tasks means deciding which tasks are most important and urgent. You can use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize your tasks. The Eisenhower Matrix is a simple tool that helps you categorize tasks based on their importance and urgency.

Tasks that are both urgent and important should be done first. Tasks that are important but not urgent should be scheduled for later. Tasks that are urgent but not important should be delegated to someone else. Tasks that are neither urgent nor important should be eliminated or postponed.

Time Management Techniques

As a sales professional, managing your time effectively is crucial for your success. Here are some time management techniques that can help you stay organized and focused.

Time Blocking

Time blocking is a technique that involves scheduling specific blocks of time for specific tasks. It helps you stay focused and avoid distractions. To use this technique, you can follow these steps:

Identify your most important activities for the day or week.
Block out specific times in your calendar for each activity.
Avoid multitasking and focus on one task at a time during each block.
Take short breaks between blocks to recharge and avoid burnout.

By using time blocking, you can ensure that you have enough time to complete your most important tasks, and avoid wasting time on less important ones.

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management technique that involves breaking your workday into 25-minute intervals, separated by short breaks. It helps you stay focused and avoid burnout. To use this technique, you can follow these steps:

Choose a task to work on.
Set a timer for 25 minutes.
Work on the task until the timer goes off.
Take a short break (5-10 minutes).
Repeat the process for four cycles.
Take a longer break (15-30 minutes).

By using the Pomodoro Technique, you can stay focused and avoid distractions, while also taking regular breaks to recharge.

Leveraging Technology

When it comes to sales day planning and time management, leveraging technology can be a game-changer. Here are two ways you can use technology to streamline your sales processes:

CRM Tools

Your CRM is your most important tool. It’ll help you keep track of your sales pipeline, manage your leads and contacts, and automate your sales processes. Don’t neglect it.

We know it’s a chore, but keeping the CRM up-to-date is the most effective way to see leads are hot, which ones need follow-up, and which ones are cold — and prioritize accordingly.

Automating Repetitive Tasks

You likely have a lot of repetitive tasks that take up valuable time. Fortunately, there are tools available that can automate many of these tasks. Tools like Zapier or IFTTT can set up triggers that automatically add new leads to your CRM tool when they fill out a form on your website or interact with you on social media.

If you aren’t already, you should be using email templates. Instead of writing the same email over and over again, you can create a template that you can customize for each lead. This saves you time and ensures that your messaging is consistent.

Handling Interruptions and Distractions

Interruptions and distractions can make it challenging to stay on track. Here are some strategies to help you handle interruptions and distractions effectively.

Establishing a Do Not Disturb Protocol

One way to minimize interruptions is to establish a “Do Not Disturb” protocol. This could include setting aside specific times during the day when you are not available for meetings or phone calls.

You could also use tools like email autoresponders to let people know when you are not available. By establishing clear boundaries, you can help ensure that you have uninterrupted time to focus on your work.

Managing Client Expectations

Let your clients know when you are available and when you are not. If you have set aside specific times for phone calls or meetings, communicate this to your clients in advance. By managing their expectations, you can help reduce the number of interruptions you receive.

Stack Rank Your Priorities

While it is important to limit interruptions, you should also use common sense to decide which activity to do when — and when to change course.

Let’s say that you’ve blocked off the first hour of your day for prospecting, but 5 minutes in, your phone rings: It’s one of your prospects who you called yesterday calling you back.

Answer the phone!

When in doubt, always prioritize interactions that are farther down the funnel (i.e., closer to closing) over those that are farther up the funnel.

Review and Adaptation

Even with a solid plan in place, things can change quickly, and it’s essential to be able to adjust your approach accordingly. Effective time management requires constant review and adaptation.

Daily Review Sessions

One of the most effective ways to stay on track with your sales day planning is to schedule a daily review session. During this time, you can reflect on your progress and make any necessary adjustments to your schedule for the rest of the day or the next day.

A review session doesn’t have to be long or complicated. It can be as simple as taking 10-15 minutes at the end of each day to review what you accomplished, what you didn’t get to, and what you need to prioritize for the next day. This review will help you stay focused and ensure that you’re making progress towards your goals.

Continuous Improvement Strategies

Continuous improvement is another critical aspect of effective time management. Even if your sales day planning is working well, there’s always room for improvement. By continuously evaluating your approach and looking for ways to optimize your time, you can become more efficient and productive.

Some strategies to consider for continuous improvement include:

Tracking your time to identify areas where you’re spending too much or too little time
Experimenting with different scheduling techniques to find what works best for you
Seeking feedback from colleagues or mentors to identify areas where you could improve
Reflecting on your successes and failures to identify patterns and adjust your approach accordingly

By committing to continuous improvement, you can refine your sales day planning approach over time and become even more effective at managing your time.