Stay in Focus and Elevate Your Productivity with Modern Selling Lists

Time, motivation, discipline, and energy. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve written about these before. They are the “non-renewables.” With so many demands on our days, some specific approaches can help us to better decide where the resources get allocated.

Modern selling lists are one strategy for helping you focus on your most important activities– and elevate your productivity. These are more than typical “to do” lists. Several of can be used in collaboration with your CRM, and can give you that extra boost of focus. It’s all part of the skillset A Modern Seller is Holistic.

Here are a few lists to get you started. I share more in my book, The Modern Seller.

1. Daily Priority. The One Thing authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan share the strategy of investing the first part of your day working on your top priority, the one that will move you forward in a significant way. Can you look at your day, and know the one or two priority activities that are “must accomplish” for your sales day? The days when I do this, I’m measurably more productive because I’ve chosen to focus my energies and make meaningful progress on a smaller number of items.
2. Top 25 Prospects. This is a list of company-level prospects that are considered your top tier. While your CRM might maintain all your prospects, this view helps keep your priority prospects top of mind. Within each of those company-level prospects, list out the key buying roles and individuals that you need to reach. Consider categorizing further by the strength of the relationship and other centers of influence. This will give you a visual into the progress you need to make within each prospect.
3. Daily Prospecting. As a companion to your Top 25 Prospects, this is a list of your daily prospects you need to reach. This list should be created the evening before, so it’s ready to go for your prospecting block. It also helps to segment the list in ways that will help you create momentum. For example, you may segment by industry, at company-level or by prospecting method. I gain the most momentum by sticking to a single prospecting method in a block — for example, one block of time is dedicated only to phone calls.
4. Centers of Influence. This is a list of the well-connected individuals and leaders in your network that you need to establish relationships with to collaborate, idea share, conduct research or learn from. They’re the people you’re introduced to through others. This list is critical to extending your reach and your opportunities. For example, my board service peers and my university alumni are Centers of Influence.
5. Trigger events. Trigger events are those point-in-time events happening in the industry or at your customers that can provide just the opening you need to get in the door. I highly recommend Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath for more on this topic. Like ideas, trigger events can be easily lost and forgotten. But they can be a top source of urgent needs happening at a current client or prospect. When you see a trigger event, capture it, and then determine if it’s worth following up on. If it is, it can make its way to your prospecting or follow-up lists.

How else can a modern seller be holistic? Watch this short video below. And learn how to get my book, The Modern Seller.