Monday mornings & Friday afternoons
At one point in my career, years ago when I was a ‘bag-carrying’ sales rep with an individual quota, there were two parts of my work-week that I dreaded. I was with a great company, selling a great product, and was crushing my quota. I liked my prospects and customers, enjoyed the camaraderie of my peers, and was generally having a blast at work. But I learned to loathe Monday mornings and Friday afternoons. Why? Because those were the two times of the week that I was forced to use my time poorly.
My manager at the time had a mandatory team meeting on Monday mornings. Because that’s when you have a sales team meeting, right? Get the week started together, do some planning on your upcoming collaborations, and make company announcements. Everybody does it … but they shouldn’t. How you start is how you continue, and starting the week with internal discussions rather than prospecting, a low-key meeting rather than a high-energy start, and administrivia rather than real sales activities, gets the week started off wrong and saps mental energy.
At the other end of the week, we had a mandatory training call every Friday afternoon at 4pm. Ongoing sales enablement is crucially important, but during the last hour of the business week, I would sit there writhing, watching the voicemails pile up, as all the prospecting that I’d done through the week paid off, with prospective customers calling me back just before they left for the weekend… and getting voicemail because I was on an internal training call. And of course, by the time I called them back after 5pm, they had wrapped up their work week, pushing our conversation into the next week.
The truth of the matter, though, is that even without badly scheduled internal meetings, far too many sales reps inflict this same pattern on themselves. They spend Monday ‘ramping up’ and then spend Friday ‘winding down,’ catching up on administrative tasks and chatting with colleagues - so that, in reality, they’re working a three-day week. Three days is 60% of the business week, and working a three-day week seems to me a pretty good way to close 60% of quota.
Starting Monday morning with a rush of energy and a series of high-impact activities sets the tone for the entire week. Actively selling all the way through the end of the business day on Friday shortens sales cycles and builds credibility with prospects. Both of these things set an example for peers that lifts the entire sales culture of the organization. Yes, you have to have team meetings. Yes, ongoing training is crucial. Yes, you had to have internal company conversations and allow time for connecting with colleagues, as well as for administrative tasks. But there is no need to kill motivation by a sluggish start on Monday, nor to undercut the efforts you made all week by being unavailable to prospects and customers on Friday. Bookend the business week with high-energy, focused sales efforts and you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes in your overall results.