The Importance Of Staying Focused While Teleprospecting
Posted by
Matt Fitts on Tue, Mar 27, 2024 @ 08:24 PM
A recent blog in the Harvard Business Review written by Tony Schwartz, entitled, “The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time caught my eye as I began thinking about my upcoming day and the tasks I had on my “to-do” list.
Tony ‘s blog is focused on a discussion around how a large number of folks have a feeling of being overwhelmed or burned out at work and sites the fact that we “spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time”. Well not only did this get me thinking about my upcoming day but it also inspired me to think about my teleprospecting team and some of the tendencies that I see as I work with them on a day to day basis. 
In my experience I have seen many teleprospecting reps take the idea of “multitasking” to a new level that I would term “chaotic shuffling”. What do I mean by this? Well perhaps an example will help demonstrate what I mean.
On a number of occasions I have sat with folks on my team and they will have Salesforce.com open to a lead record, the website of the target organization open, and perhaps yahoo finance open as well. All appropriate items to leverage while preparing /making a prospecting cold call but when I take a closer look it becomes apparent that there is just too much going on for one person to truly focus. It turns out that the first three tabs are the above mentioned items but the next 10 are more records in Salesforce of other target organizations, inside a range of target verticals. Well some teleprospecting reps argue that they are just preparing for the next task, I would say they are distracting themselves from the true task at hand – penetrating and uncovering an opportunity inside the first organization they have open.
I would argue that if they focused on doing one thing at a time (penetrating that target organization) their goal would be attained more easily.
The second item I began thinking about after reading Tony’s blog is the structure of a teleprospecting reps day. For example, when they call certain types of contacts (whether they are just starting their prospecting or they are following-up with interested parties), often times a rep is left to develop their own daily routine, this is something that we tend to see as productive because they “know themselves best”. However, I started thinking about some conversations I have had recently with my management team regarding how more structure in a day would lead to a more productive day. This brought me right back to the core of Tony’s blog which is highlighted in the following: “The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as periods of real renewal”
What are your thoughts on structure and focus to gain productivity?