Ryan Dohrn answers Terry from Houston about staying focused in sales. He uses four CRM lists—Prospecting, In-Progress, Actives, and Special Projects—to structure daily work and avoid distractions. On low-motivation days, he calls supportive contacts, changes music, and drinks strong coffee.
What is going on, friends and fans? Hope you're having a great week out there in sales land. We're answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, here comes our next listener question. This is from Terry in Houston. Ryan, I am having a heck of a time staying focused. I've heard your podcast on using lists and things like that. What else can you share with me, and why really is focus so important? So, Tara from Houston, I know that when you talk about focus or you hear people talking about focus, people are like, ah, it's sort of like time management. Really, Ryan? Do we really need to talk about it? Well, we actually do. Why are focus points so important in the sales business? They're important because every day is not a good day in sales land. Some mornings you wake up and you're like, ugh, I just don't feel like selling much today. You ever have those days? Maybe you've had a couple of months of non-performing sales progress and you're like, you know what, I've lost my mojo. Well, what Terry is talking about is the 3 lists that I work to help me maintain focus, and I monitor these lists inside of my CRM. I've got a prospecting list, we'll come back to that. I've got an in-progress list, we'll come back to that. And I've got an actives list. Now we also have a special projects list. But I keep track of special projects as well. All right, why 3 different lists? Days when I'm not feeling like selling, one of the first things that I do is I just start working my lists. Now, I also might call my mom, call somebody that loves me, listen to a different kind of music, drink extra strong coffee, you know, things like that. But my prospecting list, I'm talking differently to that list than I talk to my in-progress list. So for me, a prospect is about getting a meeting. Once I have a meeting with somebody, I change their status to in progress because I'm going to talk to an in progress person differently than I'm going to talk to an active person. So again, prospect list, in progress list, active list, and then sometimes I'll have over here on the side, I'll have some type of special projects list as well. When I'm talking to prospects, I'm still using social proof, name dropping other customers, Try to get a meeting with them. When people are in progress, that means I've met with them. That's more about staying on their radar. So that's a little bit of a different conversation. And then Terry, the actives list. I mean, you're always more likely to re-sign somebody that you've already got as a customer. And that's why that actives list is important. Now the special projects list, I like that one because sometimes I'm tasked with special projects. I need to be able to work those projects really, really efficiently. Efficiently. The focus point and the reason focus is so important is because we're pulled off track so often. In the sales business, we're constantly asked for reports, or we're doing customer service, or we're doing retention activities, or we're traveling to a trade show. Without focus, Terry, and everybody out there, without focus, you're never going to be as successful as somebody that's paying attention out there in sales land. I'd also, a little side note, tell you, if you're not using a CRM, like you're using a Google Sheet or an Excel document or something like that, Friends, every superstar sales rep I know uses a CRM, a customer relationship management tool. If you remember everybody you called on yesterday, I'm just telling you, you probably didn't make enough sales calls because I'm pretty good at it and even I can't remember everybody I called on yesterday. I hope this is helpful to you, Terry, and everybody else. Keep your listener questions coming to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Never forget, friends, if this job was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. It's a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. Hey, love to speak to your national sales meeting. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com.
