 is pre-occupied by anything other than selling. Engrossed by intensive reports, updating the CRM, or building lead lists.
This is detrimental for more than just the fact you are NOT SELLING – it interrupts workflow.
You simply can’t get on a roll calling if you are updating the CRM between calls, and this constant switching between tasks negatively impacts productivity.
Within a 40 hour week, salespeople on average will only spend 23% of this time on the phone.
23% is staggeringly low!
It signals that time management is incredibly useful in reaching top sales performance.
This is also why, when put to use, The Golden Hours are super effective.
With The Golden Hours being between 9am-6pm, it’s unrealistic to be selling every minute.
The key to using this time effectively is to time block. Time blocking is a time management technique where you dedicate an allotted amount of time to 1 task only.
From a sales context many companies use the term “Power Hour”, where they time block a segment of their day purely for cold calling. Click here to see our guide on how many cold calls to do per day.
A recommendation is to time block 2-3 “Power Hours” throughout the day to drastically improve productivity.
Typically 4am-5pm, and 8am-9am are the optimal times to cold call.
Time blocking enables you to be hyper focussed on a single task, but there’s also other factors at play.
Have you ever had a project given to you with a deadline of 1 month?
You don’t even think about it for the first week.
Second week rolls around and it starts to become front of mind, by the 3rd week it’s a priority, and in week 4 urgency to complete the project kicks in.
This scenario is governed by Parkinson’s Law.
Parkinson’s Law is usually expressed as “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” That is to say if a project is given a year to complete, it will take the whole year.
On the opposite end of the spectrum sits a corollary to Parkinson’s Law. It states that work will compress into the time allocated to it.
These two theories play out in sales scenarios too, and are the core reason why time blocking is so effective.
Giving yourself a shorter window to complete tasks means urgency kicks in quicker.
You’ll find yourself devoting energy to get the desired outcome faster, and overall being more productive.
Understanding these concepts and integrating them into the way you work is critical for effective time management.
The truth in the matter is that there will always be peers, clients and managers that require your attention.
Doing non-sales activities during The Golden Hours widens the gap between where you are, and ultimately where you want to be. This includes salespeople, and business owners alike!
Don’t worry though. If this is you, you aren’t alone.
Everyday there are thousands of people being engrossed in activities prohibiting them from building new business – we need effectively navigate around this!
What are some strategies to leverage The Golden Hours? Let’s look at how the pros do it.
Effective planning means prioritising what tasks you spend your energy on each and everyday. Start with a list every morning and jot down all the tasks you want to achieve, then rank them.
It’s known that salespeople who habitually plan spend 1 more hour a day selling, than those who don’t.
Everyday rank your tasks as ‘Critical’, ‘Important’, ‘Non-Essential’.
Critical tasks influence the status of your performance and need to be achieved that day (within The Golden Hours of Sales), whereas non-essential tasks should be achieved outside of The Golden Hours.
The idea is to facilitate the achievement of tasks that make a true impact in your role because these will lead to your success. Making this a habit everyday will show it’s significance in the long term.
Another effective planning strategy is accurately forecasting time spent on each task. People tend to give themselves longer than they need to complete a task, which inflates the time taken to complete it.
Don’t leave time for ‘leg-room’ on a task. Become efficient and decrease the likelihood of getting distracted.
Using Parkinson’s Law – we know using a shorter window of time to complete a task tends will lead to it being completed quicker.
Try taking 10 minutes to check the morning emails, instead of 30. You’ll be surprised at how much time you will save, and can now use to complete other tasks or sell more often!
Turn off all distractions and hone in your focus on solely cold calling or selling. This is what an effective power hour is!
You can even use a power hour for emailing or connecting on LinkedIn – use what’s more effective for you.
Log out of Instagram, turn off Slack and phone notifications, even log out of the CRM – update it after!
All you need is a long list of contacts and start dialling, or if you already have a meeting booked within the time frame focus solely on that.
In my experience a power hour is excellent within a team environment too. For the fact that there’s a common goal and everyone is feeding off the focussed energy in the room.
Start with a 20 minute block of time.
Set yourself a goal to achieve within the time frame. When you develop the ability to focus beyond 20 minutes, integrate a 40 minute power hour. And then increase again to 1 hour when it suits.
You’ll find you’ll get a lot more done throughout the day when you aren’t constantly getting derailed!
Many trying to create new business get themselves into trouble doing non-selling related activities – going deeper into a world where they have no new opportunities or deals to show.
Leveraging the Golden Hours of selling is a solution to better your income, career and success.
Consistently it’s been shown that professionals who prioritise high impact tasks, simply have more success.
There will undoubtedly be some drawbacks, teething problems as you first make the adjustment. You may have to make some sacrifices, like getting up earlier or staying back an extra hour, but stick it out because you’ll see reward in due course.
Remember, when your goal is to generate revenue – you’ll never get fired or lose your business for not doing admin, but you’ll definitely be at risk if you don’t sell.
Use The Golden Hours to your advantage!
I am forever scrambling at the last minute to try and figure out if I’m forgetting anything. I’ll make a travel packing list, and then make several others as I thought of things but didn’t have my original list within reach. Even after all that, I usually end up forgetting something. Some of the following 13 things are things I’ve actually forgotten, and some are things I’ve had to run back inside my house to grab at the last minute.
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve left my house at dark-thirty in the morning, only to land at my destination and realize that I’ve forgotten my sunglasses. For some reason, my brain thinks of sunglasses as a thing I’ll have when I leave the house, so there’s no need to pack them. 
Here’s the thing: swimsuits aren’t bulky. They don’t take up a lot of space, or effort, and can even be used as padding for other things. Throw one in your suitcase. I’ve never regretted bringing a swimsuit and ever SINGLE time I don’t bring one, I wish I had one (surprise indoor swimming pool or hot tub, anyone?). Just pack the swimsuit.
Again, they’re thin and easy to toss into a suitcase, and I’m forever thankful when I don’t have to put socks on to run down the hall to get ice or wear my sneakers to the pool. If the shower is gross, having flip flops is an added bonus.
I’m sure you’ve heard this one repeatedly if you’ve searched anything on travel or packing, but it’s worth mentioning. Bottles of water are expensive and water is free at airports (many even have the cool bottle fillers so you don’t even have to play the game of using a water fountain to fill your bottle up most of the way), so just take an empty water bottle through security and fill it up once you’re on the other side. I usually leave the house (or the hotel, if I’m going home) with a little bit of water in the bottle and then force myself to drink that before getting to security. It helps avoid dehydration!
These two travel together in my world, and I never go anywhere overnight without them. The eye mask is because I’m super picky about how much light exists when I’m trying to sleep (I’m afraid of the dark but can’t sleep with light…) and you never know what the curtain situation is going to be like in any given hotel room (or airbnb, whatever). The ear plugs are partially because some places are loud… but mostly? Mostly, it’s because my best friends snore, and I’m a light sleeper when I’m trying to fall asleep. They can’t stop snoring, so I just fix the issue on my end. It works fine.
I have seven credit cards (because of travel hacking), and I always keep cash on me. I’m never worried about the cards not being accepted… I’m worried about the whole system going down, or about