What to Do When You Have Zero Time for Sales
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Brooke Greening: Yeah, this is, this has probably been one of the craziest 14 days of our marriage, I would say.
Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face." And I believe that was Mike Tyson, is that right?
There are times that happen where you have a plan, you think you know what you're gonna do, and then you get hit in the face.
Scott Greening: Right. So this may be the first time in world history where Mike Tyson and Elizabeth Elliot have been tied together in the same conversation.
Brooke Greening: Yes. I argue that actually as soon as you get off the phone, as soon as you end the conversation. The momentum starts to fade a little bit.
Invest in the future and then automate when you can.
Scott Greening: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sip and Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. Where I, Scott Greening am your host, and bring in my wife and sales trainer, sales coach Brooke Greening to answer anonymous sales questions. We invite you, as always to join the conversation by submitting your anonymous sales question at buildingmomentum.Info/matcha, and we'd love to feature that on a future episode. We're going to bring Brooke in, and so Hello. Welcome. It's been a, it's been a couple of weeks here, hasn't it?
Brooke Greening: Yeah, this is, this has probably been one of the craziest 14 days of our marriage, I would say.
Scott Greening: Yes. So we, eh, probably, we we won't bore you with all the details of our family drama, but there was a truck accident that our daughter got hit by a truck and that she's doing remarkably well, which we're thankful to God for. Mm-hmm. But that's kind of sent us on a tailspin for a number of reasons for the last couple of weeks. And Lord willing, maybe we're coming out of it a little bit. But we're glad to be able to take a moment and sip some matcha and get Brooke into a space where she feels comfortable and confident.
Brooke Greening: Well that didn't just take back the curtain in our life completely. Well,
Scott Greening: it is who it is. So,
Brooke Greening: Brooke is not feeling entirely confident about things right now. No, it's good. So anytime you have sick kiddos, it's hard. But yeah, especially this.
Scott Greening: So let's talk about the question, and it's from our own experience, but we do get this mm-hmm question regularly from people, or you do. And that is like, what do I do when I unexpectedly have zero time for sales? So us as, you know, small business owners and that work out of our home office and have kids and all of that. Like, there's always things that may ruin our best laid plans that we have.
But back when you were in the corporate world, there's always crises that come up and your attention gets diverted and all of a sudden when you thought you had more time, you have zero time or seemingly zero time for sales.
So that's our question today, Brooke. How are you feeling about it? Yeah,
Brooke Greening: no, I think it's a great question. I am reminded of two things, two quotes from two drastically different people, but the first one is, the quote is "Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face." And I believe that was Mike Tyson, is that right?
Yes,
Scott Greening: That's Mike Tyson. So if that's one end of the spectrum, then that's one
Brooke Greening: end of the spectrum. Then what's the other one? Well go ahead. Whether her daughter has gotten hit by a truck or things are going on just in your business, and there's a lot of things that are happening that maybe you're getting pulled.
I'm working with one client right now and they don't, they want to be able to spend time in sales, but things are happening in their business where they need to step in and start helping with the clients, and that's something they might not necessarily do. So there's different things that vy for our attention, whether it's we need to step back into something in regards to fixing something of the business. Whether it's like someone's on maternity leave or they got sick, or they're just on vacation and now you're scrambling because you don't have all the people you're used to or you've lost your sales team, whatever the case is. There are times that happen where you have a plan, you think you know what you're gonna do, and then you get hit in the face.
So that's one spectrum. The other one goes by Elizabeth Elliot is not Mike Tyson at all. She is a Christian writer. Dear soul, lovely lady. And she. A quite a long time ago was married and her husband was a missionary, and five of these missionaries were all together in Peru, and they were in like the jungles of Peru.
And the five women lost their five husbands. They were all killed all on the same day. Their whole world turned upside down. And her quote is, just do the next thing. So those are the two spectrums. One, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face. But then two, just do the next thing.
And that's what I'm gonna actually help you guys do today. I'm gonna give you things. To do so you don't have to come up with what is the next thing I'm gonna just tell you.
Scott Greening: Right. So this may be the first time in world history where Mike Tyson and Elizabeth Elliot have been tied together in the same conversation.
So let's just mark this historic moment with a little bit of laughter, but No, I know like. For us again and that sometimes when you're in the middle of a crisis, you don't even know what the next thing to do is. And so, I'm sure everyone's looking forward to getting some help with this.
So, what's what are your thoughts? What are the next things that people should be doing?
Brooke Greening: When we are talking about sales, I'm pulling this from my daily five. So I have created a daily five to help. Like what do we do? What are five daily activities that we do that are generating sales? What can we do?
And so I'm pulling one of them out today that we're talking about, and that is your pipeline is your lifeline. So if you have very, very limited time to be able to focus on sales, this is gonna be the thing that you wanna be able to do. You wanna focus on your pipeline for about 10 to 15 minutes, if that's all you have for the day, it needs to be focused on your pipeline.
Scott Greening: Alright, so your pipeline is your lifeline and you mentioned your daily five. So if people are curious, you can get that. A PDF of that at buildingmomentum.info/five, where you can get Brooke's Daily five. But we're gonna be focusing on one part of that today with your pipeline. So what do you mean your pipeline is your lifeline?
It's a little catchy tune. But what in the world does that mean?
Brooke Greening: It means a lot of times we have more customers than we think, and so when we start losing track of the people that we've already started talking to, that's when things are gonna start to fall apart. And so we don't want that. So what we're talking about today is how do we continually stay focused on those who are gonna buy within the first 30 days and those that are gonna get ready to buy within the next 30 to 60 days. That's what you're going to focus on. If you can't focus on anything else for the day, you need to at least touch base with that. And there's about three things that we're gonna be able to do when we're looking at those pieces.
Scott Greening: Alright. So you teased it up there. What's the first thing that we can do to focus on this these first group of people there?
Brooke Greening: Yeah, you want to be able to do your quick reach outs to them. So, especially for those who are gonna be buying within these next 30 days, you first, you wanna make sure that you have a time and date scheduled that you're talking with them. That is very important, but then you wanna make sure, okay, do I have a plan in regards to what we're saying?
If you don't have that planned, then that's where this quick reach out is going to come into play. You have to make sure that you're staying in contact with those who are getting ready to buy within these next 30 days. So either you have it set, which is what I would highly encourage. It's what we talk about in our SERVICE framework when we talk about having effective follow up, all of those things.
But if you don't have it set, you need to get it set because we think, oh, this is great. They're gonna buy, they told me they're gonna buy. If we don't stay on top of that, that's when we can start to lose sales that we really shouldn't, and that's gonna start affecting our business.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So I know you often talk about this and remind yourself of that and remind us in our business and remind our kids.
'cause lots of times when we make sales in our business, we celebrate with like ice cream or something like that. And so we do the kids know. Like, oh, mom's, yes, mom's making a sale. We may get ice cream, but you always say it's not a sale. Like it's not done until like the contract's been signed until there's money been delivered.
Until it's really done. And sometimes yes, we can, in a crisis, think, oh, so and so said they were gonna buy. We had it lined up. and assume it's going to happen. And then. It doesn't because maybe they forgot, maybe they had something that came up in their life or whatever the case is, and if you don't stay on top of that, you might end up losing a sale that seemed very certain and that somebody was ready to go really early.
Is am I understanding that right?
Brooke Greening: Yes. I argue that actually as soon as you get off the phone, as soon as you end the conversation. The momentum starts to fade a little bit. So that's why even when people are saying, yes, I'm ready to go, yes, send me the proposal. Yes, send me the contract. We don't wait for those things.
We get them done as quickly as we can. So in this instant, when things have gone kind of crazy, we're just making sure, okay, do I have a good handle on who is going to be buying within the next 30 days, and are we in contact with them in moving things forward? Because what you don't want to do is get to the end of the 30 days and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What happened?
Scott Greening: Right. So we want to focus on sort of like the buy now people the people mm-hmm. That are ready to move forward next. That's the first principle. Yeah. Then what's the second idea?
Brooke Greening: So then if we're talking about those who are. In like that 30 to 60 days. We wanna make sure that we have tasks that are going to be assigned to them.
And I know the word tasks is not super exciting, but we need to make sure, well, how are we communicating with them? What are we talking to them about? And so we need to start making sure that we have a communication set in regards to those 30 to 60, because I guarantee you. They're not gonna wake up and be like, oh, I really need to talk to so and so.
They're busy. And so it's our job to make sure we continue to stay on top of mind. So you're going to start assigning tasks.
Scott Greening: Okay, so we want to maybe another way to, to say that would be like, we need to keep investing in the future. When we only have a little bit of time, you want to mm-hmm.
Buy now. But then you also gotta say, okay, now is only a little bit of time, and if I'm only focusing on buy now. In a few days, in a few weeks, I'm not going to have any more buy now people. And so no,
Brooke Greening: and then you have to do it all over again. That's why we get on the sales roller coaster. If all we ever do is focus on those who are gonna buy within the next 30 days and we ignore the 30 to 60 and then completely forget the 60 to 90 days, then we have this huge rollercoaster.
'cause we're like, Hey, I had a great month. But then you get into the next month and you're like, well, where'd everybody go? 'cause we haven't been working with them to move them through. So a hundred percent you need to be focusing on the future and looking at your buyers for the day.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And so that in both of these case, some of this can apply, but like you can automate maybe some of your communication.
Mm-hmm. Or you can you talked about assigning tasks like, Hey, I know I need to remember to talk to this person in a week and a half. Like, put that as a task in your CRM because in the craziness of a difficult time, those types of things Yes. Fall off the to-do list pretty quick if they're not assigned or they drop outta your mind or whatever the case is.
Brooke Greening: Yes. And I would say number three is automate the things that you can. So even if you're sending text messages, emails, like write them and then have them ready to be sent on a different day. We're not saying you have to do all of the things and talk to everybody right now, because that's what starts to get overwhelming and that's when we're like, I can't, because if it goes into a longer conversation, I don't have enough time today.
That's where we're saying, we'll make sure you automate them. So if you're like, okay, I need to do this within the next week, write the email right then. And then set, have it set that it's gonna go out in the next couple of days. Just set yourself up for success so that you're not overwhelmed by the things that you need to do, but you're able to really look at, okay, who are the top three to five people I need to make sure I'm continuing staying in contact with?
And that's where your CRM comes into play. That's when really in regards with the follow up, you need to have a plan for that. And we talk about that in other episodes. We talk about that in our SERVICE framework, but that's how it all starts coming together.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I just like, on a practical level you know, whether it's your CRM or your email platform, even like on my phone now, you may not be using your personal phone number for business in that task, but like I can schedule a text message to go out at a later time.
So sometimes when I'm talking with someone and I say, oh, I need to talk to them later. I'll write the text message and I'll say, send later and schedule the time and for it to go out. And it's a way to take advantage of a few moments that I have, but then it also doesn't eat up time that I won't have in the future because it's done.
And then they can, yeah, they can respond or it can go out and then that is a restart in my mental processes that I may have lost in the midst of the crisis of the day. So,
Brooke Greening: yes. Yes.
Scott Greening: Great. Okay, so if I heard you right, we'd have like focus on your buy now people. Invest in the future and then automate when you can.
Is there any other advice or counsel that you have? For people as we think about, like, for whatever reason I've got zero or next to zero time for sales, how do I keep moving forward?
Brooke Greening: Yes. The other piece I just wanna encourage is it's not the time to wing it, but it's not the time to be so focused that you don't move forward at all.
And what I mean by that is sometimes people are like, oh, I'm not entirely sure what to text. Oh, I'm not entirely sure what to email. I'm not entirely sure what to say. And that's why I wanna say. You wanna be intentional, you wanna be clear for the reason you're calling and what you're asking them, but you don't need to be overthinking it because that's what's gonna stop us from actually moving forward.
So I always encourage if we're about 80% there. Let's keep going, but just quickly, if you know that okay, we have a proposal that's coming up, or they're getting ready to sign the contract or we're getting ready to work with them, they're gonna sign the contract in the next week or two even something as simple as saying, Hey, I'm really looking forward I to working with you.
I've sent the contract. Let me know if you have any questions, like something along that line that is just continuing to stay in contact with them between when they said they were going to and when they're actually going to sign the contract. Or in regards to your next meeting, you can just say, Hey, I'm really looking forward to the meeting.
I was just thinking about something in relation to what would be meaningful in that conversation and share that. So it needs to be intentional, it needs to be directional, but you don't wanna be overthinking it so that you don't do anything.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I know someone else, and I'm like, this was more of a marketing context, but it sort of is the same idea there.
They say it this way, it was like, published is better than perfect. Yes. And like sometimes we just like, we just need to send it. We just need to do it. We just like it. It may not be. Yeah, completely. Perfect. But that's all right. So, alright, well this is, this is good. People in crisis don't need 40 minutes of us or that, so this is a good quick, quick reminder.
We want to invite people, if you've found this conversation profitable or helpful to share it, to review it on your podcast platform of choice to subscribe to like, send Brooke matcha, whatever the case may be. And we'd love to, to hear from you and keep the conversation going and we'll continue to sip some matcha and help you make more sales.
Have a great day.
Brooke Greening: Bye. Thank you, Dr. Greening.
