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Sales growth productivity hinges on how effectively sales professionals allocate their time. This blog explores nine actionable strategies to prioritize revenue-generating activities, reduce inefficiencies, and enhance results. Maximize your productivity and achieve your sales goals with these expert tips.

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The challenge of non-selling time for sales professionals isn’t new, but it has become more amplified. Salesforce analyzed the activities of 5,500 professionals and found that revenue-generating sales activities use only 30% of their week. The other 70% is used with tasks not directly related to revenue generation.

The report defines tasks that directly generate revenue as in-person or virtual sales conversations, prospecting, and generating quotes or proposals for qualified opportunities.

When you look at your week, how much of it is invested in those activities versus others? If you’re not making or exceeding your quota, you may need to adjust how you’re investing your time into direct revenue-generating activities. Being busy with lots of activity will not get you there, but being productive with the right activity will.

It’s not realistic to expect a seller to dedicate 100% of their week to revenue generation, but there is a lot of ground to be made up. And even small improvements will yield more opportunities and better results.

Below are nine ideas to help you improve your sales productivity and time dedicated specifically to revenue generation.

1. Treat Your Time as an Investment, Not an Expense

Time can’t be regained, and consider it as something to invest, not just something to spend. For one week (five business days) track all your work activities down to 30-minute increments. You’ll notice patterns of where time is invested and where it’s spent. Prioritize high-impact activities that align with your goals rather than just keeping busy.

2. Design an Environment That Supports Productivity

Your workspace matters more than you might think. Whether it’s your home office, your car (if you’re on the road), or the digital tools you use, set up an environment that enhances your efficiency and focus.

3. Blend Personal and Professional Priorities

We live in a world where the personal and professional often blend together. Aim to find an integration of activities where you can stay energized and productive. Just as you would for sales activities, time-block key personal activities like exercise, hobbies, time with family and friends.

4. Reduce Administrative Burdens

This isn’t easy; sales professionals are often asked to commit time to other initiatives or tasks within the organization. These have a level of importance but aren’t direct selling activities. Some ideas to help with this include batching administrative tasks where you can into a single time block and using time where your energy is at its highest to focus on direct selling activities.

5. Stop Procrastinating on Follow-Ups

This one idea will save you hours of time. Tackle as many follow-up items as possible right after a sales call. The longer you wait, the harder it is to remember details and take meaningful action. This includes scheduling follow-up calls with your clients and prospects during the current meeting. This one idea alone will save you months in your sales cycle and countless emails.

6. Always Have a Clear Agenda for Meetings

Maximize the value of your sales calls by setting a structured agenda and getting buy-in beforehand. This ensures you stay focused and deliver value. Not running a sales meeting with an agenda will cause significantly more work in moving opportunities forward.

7. Selectively Use AI to Improve Your Productivity

No, AI isn’t going to eliminate your sales role. But not using AI selectively to improve your productivity will put you behind elite sellers who use it well. Consider using AI (with the appropriate security and privacy guardrails) to create meeting summaries, to generate ideas for customer and prospect meetings, and to assist with sales research.

8. Plan Your Week and Day Strategically

Most sellers overestimate what they can do in a day—focus on fewer, high-impact tasks for better results. For example, prospecting is a high-impact sales activity. You may break your prospecting activities down to smaller, daily chunks of time, and done when your energy and optimism are highest. Writing proposals for qualified sales opportunities is a high-impact sales activity. Look for patterns in your proposals and use them to create a template that you can tailor; that approach will save hours of time.

9. Get a Peer Accountability Partner

The best way to stay accountable is a partner who will both support and challenge you. Is there someone on your team, or an outside coach that can play that role? Having public accountability and needing to check in weekly or bi-weekly with your commitments provides that extra push to stay on track.

By applying these 9 sales productivity tips, you’ll work smarter, stay focused, and achieve better results in 2025.

Your Path to Sales Growth

Improving your sales performance starts with taking intentional actions and leveraging the strategies. If you’re ready to enhance productivity, and focus on what truly drives revenue, don’t hesitate to reach out. Contact me to learn how my expertise and solutions can empower you to achieve your sales goals and exceed expectations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Focusing on revenue-generating activities ensures that your time and energy are channeled toward tasks that directly impact your bottom line. By minimizing distractions and inefficiencies, sales professionals can drive better results and achieve their targets more efficiently.

Start by analyzing your daily tasks and tracking how much time is spent on low-value or non-essential activities. Tools like time management trackers or seeking feedback from peers and managers can help pinpoint areas where productivity can be improved.

The first step is setting clear, measurable goals and aligning your daily actions to those objectives. Begin by creating a prioritized task list and leveraging tools such as CRM software to streamline communication, manage leads, and optimize your processes effectively.

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