Five Productivity Boosters for the Busy Sales Executive
When I first started in sales I had simple tools: a pen, anotepad and me.
I very quickly upgradedmy notepad to a Daytimer.
That onechange increased my productivity by about 25%.
It was because of this change that I learned the power of using goodtools to help me sell more by being more productive.
I eventually upgraded my Daytimer to a laptoprunning a contact manager.
I experienceda similar productivity boost with this new automation tool.
People that work on automation tools say thatto be effective the tool must solve one of the three Ds – Dirty, Dangerous orDull.
For sales professionals mostautomation tools work on the last item - Dull.
In the last 15 years I’ve discovered a number of tools that have helpedme remove tedious tasks from my sales process.
The following are five admin time savers I can’t live without:
If you are usinganother email program or contact manager you will find only limited value inthese tools.
Collecting Addresses Anagram is my most recent find.
If you do any amount of prospecting onlineyou need Anagram.
This little piece ofsoftware will read the contents of your clipboard and convert it into an entryin Outlook.
Anagram knows how to tellthe difference between an address and an appointment.
I most frequently use Anagram to copy aprospects address from their website right into my Outlook.
No more typing, tabbing, cutting orpasting.
In the past you might have used Outlooks “add to addressbook” feature.
Doing this only adds thepersons name and email address to your address book, that’s only half thejob.
If someone sends you an email with hisor her address in the signature file you can use Anagram to create a completeaddress book entry.
You can alsocollect the address from the sender’s website and then merge the have Outlookautomatically merge the two contact entries Searching Emails About a year ago now Microsoft released Windows DesktopSearch.
In typical Microsoft fashionthey purchased a company that made a great search tool for Outlook andincorporated it into their desktop search tool.
When they did that they simplified the search syntax, what a pity.
The previous incarnation of the software,Lookout, had robust search syntax.
Lookout offers phenomenal search capabilities for yourOutlook files (documents too).
Thesearch is so good that I no longer sort my email.
Why bother?With Lookout I can do simple or complex searches to help me find thatone email I’m looking for.
Let’s say Bob sends you an email on Tuesday, it’s nowFriday.
You remember that Bob sent youan email sometime this week but you can’t seem to find it amongst the hundredsof emails you received this week.
Withlook out you can find the message very quickly with a simple search likethis: from:bob lastweek.
Thesearch syntax is very robust but I’d say the lastweek keyword is my favourite.
Sending Proposals I prepare between two and five proposals/quotes everyweek.
In a previous job I was doing thatmany a day.
In our interconnected worldmost quotes are now transmitted in electronic format.
I choose to send all of my proposals in PDFformat.
I do this for severalreasons: maintain the look of theproposal, make it harder for the recipient to edit the proposal and to providea readable format for the proposal.
The de facto standard format for soft copy documents isAdobe Acrobat (PDF).
If you are luckythe application that you use to create your proposals allows you to save in PDFformat.
Alternatively you can use PDF995which is available in both free and paid versions.
Don’t be cheap! The paid version is only $9.
95 and I know whoto make it pay for itself! Anytime youmake a business purchase online create a PDF of the receipt page.
You can then either print the PDF when youare back in the office or send it via email for reimbursement.
Saving Attachments Email attachments bloat the size of your PST file veryquickly; this makes it hard to transfer or back up your PST.
If you are anything like me your PST file caneasily climb above 650 MB, the typical capacity of a CD-ROM.
I like to keep my PST under this magic numberso that I can easily back up my PST to disc.
Email is slowly replacing the telephone as the communication of choicefor relationship maintenance.
As aresult backing up your PST is more important now than ever.
(One day I’ll tell you about the time I droveover my laptop, ouch!) So how do youeasily remove attachments from your email?Simple, use EZ Detach.
EZ Detach is an Outlook plug-in that seamlessly removesattachments and stores them in the folder of your choice.
The software is smart enough to createsubfolders for your attachments based on how you want them sorted: from address, date, account, etc.
When EZ Detach removes a file it places alink in the email to the new file location.
This makes it easy to open the file from within your email client butstill store the files externally.
Withversion 5 you are now asked if you’d like to reattach the file beforeforwarding the email message.
Your correspondentswill love this feature because it means they will only get the attachments theyneed! You are now prompted to reattachany file before sending.
Ask yourself,does the recipient really need the file? EZ Detach will store your attachments in the folder of yourchoice.
I have a special folder calledattachments in my document root.
I cannow open attachments directly without having to search for and then open theemail directly.
Maintaining YourAddress Book My sister has worked for the same employer for 20years! I don’t know how she doesit.
Most people I know change jobsroughly every 3-5 years.
Some might bewith the same employer longer but they will change positions within theorganization.
All this change causeshavoc with my address book.
I have founda tool that will automatically update my address book for me, it is calledPlaxo.
Plaxo works on a free membership model.
The contact details for any Plaxo member inyour address book is automatically updated whenever the member changes theirpersonal information.
You can alsorequest non-Plaxo member to send you their updated contact details.
I was unsure about Plaxo at first.
I’ve been using it for almost two years nowand it’s been nothing but helpful.
I get to keep up-to-date with my contactsand equally important they get to keep up-to-date with me.
ContinuousImprovement The tools I’ve mentioned above are steps along the path ofcontinuous improvement – what the Japanese call Kaizen.
As with Kaizen no single tool willrevolutionize your business or make you incredibly productive but the compoundeffect of increasing your productivity, even a little bit, is staggering.
I am constantly looking for inefficiencies inmy business, I hope you will too.
Feelfree to email me your productivity suggestions, I might just send you back somemore productivity tips.
Download the tools mentioned in this article
I very quickly upgradedmy notepad to a Daytimer.
That onechange increased my productivity by about 25%.
It was because of this change that I learned the power of using goodtools to help me sell more by being more productive.
I eventually upgraded my Daytimer to a laptoprunning a contact manager.
I experienceda similar productivity boost with this new automation tool.
People that work on automation tools say thatto be effective the tool must solve one of the three Ds – Dirty, Dangerous orDull.
For sales professionals mostautomation tools work on the last item - Dull.
In the last 15 years I’ve discovered a number of tools that have helpedme remove tedious tasks from my sales process.
The following are five admin time savers I can’t live without:
- Anagram
- Lookout
- PDF995
- EZ detach
- Plaxo
If you are usinganother email program or contact manager you will find only limited value inthese tools.
Collecting Addresses Anagram is my most recent find.
If you do any amount of prospecting onlineyou need Anagram.
This little piece ofsoftware will read the contents of your clipboard and convert it into an entryin Outlook.
Anagram knows how to tellthe difference between an address and an appointment.
I most frequently use Anagram to copy aprospects address from their website right into my Outlook.
No more typing, tabbing, cutting orpasting.
In the past you might have used Outlooks “add to addressbook” feature.
Doing this only adds thepersons name and email address to your address book, that’s only half thejob.
If someone sends you an email with hisor her address in the signature file you can use Anagram to create a completeaddress book entry.
You can alsocollect the address from the sender’s website and then merge the have Outlookautomatically merge the two contact entries Searching Emails About a year ago now Microsoft released Windows DesktopSearch.
In typical Microsoft fashionthey purchased a company that made a great search tool for Outlook andincorporated it into their desktop search tool.
When they did that they simplified the search syntax, what a pity.
The previous incarnation of the software,Lookout, had robust search syntax.
Lookout offers phenomenal search capabilities for yourOutlook files (documents too).
Thesearch is so good that I no longer sort my email.
Why bother?With Lookout I can do simple or complex searches to help me find thatone email I’m looking for.
Let’s say Bob sends you an email on Tuesday, it’s nowFriday.
You remember that Bob sent youan email sometime this week but you can’t seem to find it amongst the hundredsof emails you received this week.
Withlook out you can find the message very quickly with a simple search likethis: from:bob lastweek.
Thesearch syntax is very robust but I’d say the lastweek keyword is my favourite.
Sending Proposals I prepare between two and five proposals/quotes everyweek.
In a previous job I was doing thatmany a day.
In our interconnected worldmost quotes are now transmitted in electronic format.
I choose to send all of my proposals in PDFformat.
I do this for severalreasons: maintain the look of theproposal, make it harder for the recipient to edit the proposal and to providea readable format for the proposal.
The de facto standard format for soft copy documents isAdobe Acrobat (PDF).
If you are luckythe application that you use to create your proposals allows you to save in PDFformat.
Alternatively you can use PDF995which is available in both free and paid versions.
Don’t be cheap! The paid version is only $9.
95 and I know whoto make it pay for itself! Anytime youmake a business purchase online create a PDF of the receipt page.
You can then either print the PDF when youare back in the office or send it via email for reimbursement.
Saving Attachments Email attachments bloat the size of your PST file veryquickly; this makes it hard to transfer or back up your PST.
If you are anything like me your PST file caneasily climb above 650 MB, the typical capacity of a CD-ROM.
I like to keep my PST under this magic numberso that I can easily back up my PST to disc.
Email is slowly replacing the telephone as the communication of choicefor relationship maintenance.
As aresult backing up your PST is more important now than ever.
(One day I’ll tell you about the time I droveover my laptop, ouch!) So how do youeasily remove attachments from your email?Simple, use EZ Detach.
EZ Detach is an Outlook plug-in that seamlessly removesattachments and stores them in the folder of your choice.
The software is smart enough to createsubfolders for your attachments based on how you want them sorted: from address, date, account, etc.
When EZ Detach removes a file it places alink in the email to the new file location.
This makes it easy to open the file from within your email client butstill store the files externally.
Withversion 5 you are now asked if you’d like to reattach the file beforeforwarding the email message.
Your correspondentswill love this feature because it means they will only get the attachments theyneed! You are now prompted to reattachany file before sending.
Ask yourself,does the recipient really need the file? EZ Detach will store your attachments in the folder of yourchoice.
I have a special folder calledattachments in my document root.
I cannow open attachments directly without having to search for and then open theemail directly.
Maintaining YourAddress Book My sister has worked for the same employer for 20years! I don’t know how she doesit.
Most people I know change jobsroughly every 3-5 years.
Some might bewith the same employer longer but they will change positions within theorganization.
All this change causeshavoc with my address book.
I have founda tool that will automatically update my address book for me, it is calledPlaxo.
Plaxo works on a free membership model.
The contact details for any Plaxo member inyour address book is automatically updated whenever the member changes theirpersonal information.
You can alsorequest non-Plaxo member to send you their updated contact details.
I was unsure about Plaxo at first.
I’ve been using it for almost two years nowand it’s been nothing but helpful.
I get to keep up-to-date with my contactsand equally important they get to keep up-to-date with me.
ContinuousImprovement The tools I’ve mentioned above are steps along the path ofcontinuous improvement – what the Japanese call Kaizen.
As with Kaizen no single tool willrevolutionize your business or make you incredibly productive but the compoundeffect of increasing your productivity, even a little bit, is staggering.
I am constantly looking for inefficiencies inmy business, I hope you will too.
Feelfree to email me your productivity suggestions, I might just send you back somemore productivity tips.
Download the tools mentioned in this article