How to Improve Time Management for Sales Development Representatives

Time management challenges can prevent sales development representatives (SDRs) from hitting their quotas, which subsequently impacts organizational performance. When administrative tasks and repetitive activities take up a huge chunk of a sales representative’s time, it prevents them from profitable activities like making the actual sale. As such, SDRs must be equipped with the right tools and skills to maximize their time.

1. Set Clear Goals

A set of well-defined goals is essential to give SDRs some sense of direction in their daily activities as it provides them with a clear idea of what to work toward. This involves outlining goals for the quota they need to hit each week and then breaking these up into daily goals. If they need to close at least X amount of sales each week, how many sales will they need to close per day?

This way, it becomes easier to plan out the daily activities that will help them accomplish their goals. For example, if they need to close X amount of sales per day, how many prospects should they engage with and how many outreach emails do they need to send?

2. Know What to Prioritize

Having a clear idea of tasks that should be prioritized is essential for SDRs to efficiently make use of their time. Tasks that directly contribute to achieving sales and revenue goals should be at the top of their to-do lists. For sales representatives, this means prioritizing activities that will help them to close deals—whether it’s making a follow-up call or setting up a prospect with a demo.

Additionally, prioritizing the most promising prospects is also an effective tactic to increase both profitability and productivity. However, the process of qualifying sales leads itself can be time-consuming. A solution like DemandScience Intelligence can streamline the process and save time by leveraging prioritized intent signals and other actionable data about in-market buyers.

This helps SDRs to identify the key prospects they should prioritize in their lead nurturing and follow-up tasks. Nearly half of B2B marketers in our recent survey said that intent data helps sales to prioritize leads. Additionally, 59% of respondents were able to qualify leads using intent data.

3. Maintain a Daily Calendar

A daily calendar allows SDRs to block out time slots for various activities, making it easier to manage their time more efficiently. Daily calendars can be created while keeping daily goals and priorities in mind. In addition, they should also structure their day around their customers and prospects.

This enables them to plan sales calls based on their prospects’ availability, helping them to avoid scheduling conflicts and delays. Moreover, they can set aside their most productive hours for the most demanding tasks to improve efficiency.

4. Take Breaks Regularly

In an attempt to be productive, sales representatives may often push themselves to keep working even when their energy levels are low and they are not working at an optimal level. This does more harm than good for their productivity and well-being as it slows them down and puts them at a higher risk of burnout.

Taking regular breaks between tasks can give them a chance to relax and reset their brain, which allows them to be more alert and productive throughout the day. Keep in mind that these should be real breaks, which involve stepping away from the screen for a brief stretch or a cup of coffee.

5. Recognize Distractions and Learn to Avoid Them

Minor distractions are the downfall of productivity and time management. Checking social media, attempting to multitask, and constantly switching between different unrelated tasks are the biggest distractions that SDRs need to manage.

For example, “context switching” or switching attention between multiple tasks can take up a huge chunk of productive time for sales representatives. While focusing on one task at a time helps retain 100% of available productive time, SDRs can lose 20% of their productive time to context switching that involves up to two tasks. Additionally, switching between three tasks at a time can result in a 40% loss in productive time.

It is crucial to stick to the daily plan, focus on just one task at a time, and set aside time for short breaks in between different tasks. Blocking productivity-killing apps and websites during work hours and using a time management app can help.

6. Streamline Activities for Efficiency

Many SDR activities can be optimized and streamlined for efficiency. This involves identifying inefficiencies in existing processes and tasks that often take too much time to complete, and then finding ways to optimize them. Some examples of activities that can be streamlined include:

• Grouping similar tasks together and dedicating specific blocks of time to complete them. For example, setting aside specific time slots to make client calls will help them to make more calls each day. This helps prevent context switching and multitasking, which are the biggest causes of productivity loss.
• Creating outreach and follow-up email templates that can be used to send more emails per day. Sales representatives will only need to customize the template before sending them out to each prospect or client.
• Saving time on buyer research by utilizing solutions like DemandScience Activate to help SDRs understand behavioral and content consumption trends from 3 million companies.

Optimizing these activities enables sales representatives to quickly complete their tasks without having to reinvent the wheel every time.

7. Know When and What to Automate

Sales development representatives can also use automation to speed up activities and reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks. This is particularly important for administrative tasks such as maintaining and compiling sales records. Automation workflows can also be used to have tasks running in the background such as follow-up emails and data transfer.

Increasing Productivity and Revenue with Improved Time Management

With SDRs freeing up more time in their day for important revenue-generating activities, organizations can see productivity and sales increasing. Proper time management, coupled with productivity and automation tools, is essential to achieve this goal.

Solutions from DemandScience can help businesses to save time in qualifying leads and researching prospects with accurate intent data and buyer intelligence. Contact us today to request a demo.