As a sales professional, your time has enormous value. As a sales coach, I get to watch people work in the market. When I do, I get the sense they devalue their time. They work on things others should be working on. They spend way too much time doing free consulting with a buyer. They see the buyer’s time to be worth more than theirs.
A Simple Calculation
Take what you want to earn in 2009 and divide by 500 hours. That 500 hours I arrive at because it’s 25% of the 2000 hours you have available in the next year. I figure you should be spending at least 25% of your time in front of prospects or clients doing what you do best.
So What is Your Hourly Rate?
If you want to earn $200,000 next year (that puts you in the top 4% of income earners), then your hourly rate is $400/hour. So, every hour you spend on the phone with a prospect or face-to-face is $400/hour.
Now, you can get all crazy on me and talk about those hours being different for client service vs. new prospects. Or, you can get all tied up in travel time, phone time, etc. I’ve seen people do this exercise and find that it’s actually more than that, because they seldom spend 25% of their time selling. If that’s you, I’ll tell you what I tell them—in my politically incorrect way: You’re doing something wrong.
With all of the virtual tools and people available, you can outsource a lot of that work for $15.00/hour. But you never will if you equate your hours at too low a rate.
So, write that number down somewhere and keep it prominent. Don’t go around bragging about it. Just know it. That will help you qualify better, improve your skills and get better results.
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