Brian LaManna shares a time-management system for sellers built on two priorities: advancing existing pipeline and building new pipeline. Start each morning with a pipeline review, then execute a master to-do list of value touches and block calendar time for specific prospecting tasks like sequencing five new accounts or making 18 cold calls.
Questions this video answers
18 plus months
Four years
Around 8:30–8:45 AM
40 hours per week
Sequence 5 new accounts; send 15 new messages; make 18 cold calls
Chapters
I've now ran the same seller onboarding program at GONG for the last 18 plus months. And I run it around one very specific topic, which is time management. The reason why I chose this topic and why I'm so passionate about it is that every seller basically gets 40 hours a week to execute and close as much quota as possible. Yet some reps out there, they get way more done than others, right? They get way more done in their 40 hours than the seller next to them. The biggest gap I've seen between top performers and average performers is how effective and efficient they are with their time. And I've used the same exact system the last four years as a seller and I've done it every single morning. It revolves and orients your entire week and day around two things that are going to get you to club and, and it's number one, advancing pipeline and number two, building that new pipeline. If you can orient your 40 hours a week around those two topics of building pipeline and advancing pipeline, I guarantee you you will be successful in your role. The first thing I do off of that vein as I start my day, I open up my pipeline. First and foremost, I don't check slack, I don't check email, I don't go on LinkedIn. I, I open up my pipeline and I go one by one through every single opportunity and I ask myself, hey, this opportunity with Acme Corp, is there anything I could do today to advance this deal? Could I send them a value touch? Could I add them on LinkedIn? Could I send them off a short note? How can I get them to think about Brian and my company for even just a minute, even if they don't have a meeting with me that day? Anything to win. Mindshare is a huge win. Once I go through my pipeline and build out that master to do list, the next thing I do is I go through and I execute all of those plays. So I might write three different notes I'm going to send off, I might prep for two different calls, I might insert agendas into calls for later that week of gaps that I realized I had missing. I'm going to then be done with strategizing my pipeline and executing through all of my plays and, and hopefully it's 8:30 or 8:45 in the morning and I know I've done everything I can do to advance pipeline in that first bucket already. Now what I do is I look at the rest of my day and I see, hey, I might have a meeting at 9am at noon and at 3, but I have a lot of white space in between it. When I see white space on my calendar, to me that's a signal for prospecting time. That's an opportunity to go out there and create net new pipeline. So only the same day of I go off and I block off that white space for prospecting activities. I get ultra specific, though, and instead of just saying prospecting two hours or calling two hours, I say sequence five new accounts or send 15 new messages, or make 18 cold calls that are in my task list for the day. The more specific you are, when something does come up, it'll help hold you accountable to actually follow through. From there, it's just about discipline. It's about actually going through executing those plays and executing on the prospecting that you said you're going to do. Try this out for yourself and shoot me a message if you see great results as well.
