A very quick reflection on our management of our sales conversations, having just put the phone down on such an outbound call. I have learnt over the years that there is rarely a ‘Good time’ to talk about raising the priority of training (or anything else of value) with people.

I used to prioritise sales calls around certain days, times of the month or Quarter, or what I thought were ‘planning cycles’. 

I now believe that conversations should be starting all the time and we then allow (or plan for) them to progress, be deferred or fall away depending upon our evaluation of their priority within our overall pipeline and workload management process.

I’m a big fan of conversations that add value, whether incremental or instant and I always aim to give something of value, some collateral, IP, insight or even just an injection of energy – within every conversation I have. I’m not suggesting that this is good sales management practice; I do believe, though, that it is good relationship management practice. And that is what I believe my productivity training and speaking business is all about.

A key priority in my workload management approach is to protect time to have conversations with people who may have an interest in my productivity training. When I started this business a well respected consultant told me one of his secrets

‘Richard, tell your story to at least 4 new people every day’.

I don’t always manage to speak to 4 new people every day but I do hold it out as an ambition for every day to speak with ‘new people’.

Just a thought. What do you think? How do you plan, prioritise and protect your sales conversations?