Time Management for SDR

In a Harvard Business Review study less than 1% of people are able to accurately evaluate how they spend their time. And due to the challenges of an SDR role, the percentage of us able to accurately evaluate how we spend our time VS how we feel we spend our time is undoubtedly even lower than 1%. After all, time is subjective. Why does lunch fly by, and Friday afternoon drag?!

Effective time management for an SDR means always prioritising the tasks that will get meetings booked. Sounds simple, right? Not really, because being an SDR means there are many interruptions to your time.

You need to make calls and then one, some or all of these things happen:

• A meeting needs rescheduling at the last minute

• You have to research into a prospect before calling them

• The opportunity arises to sit in on a sales meeting you’ve booked

• The person sitting next to you needs to vent after a tricky call

• The person opposite you tells a joke

• Somebody is doing a coffee run

• You need to double check your commission

• You have to keep your admin up to date

• LinkedIn is calling you

• You have your own idea you want to try to book meetings

• You need to catch up with your BDM

• You’re called in to a Team meeting

• You have to better understand your company’s solution in order to pitch a prospect

And you still have to hit your targets.

With all of these demands on your time, that you’re not always in control of, it can be hard to know if you’re doing a good job managing everything. 

Start by asking yourself these two questions…

‘Do you regularly feel stressed or anxious about how you will achieve your goals?’

If the answer is YES, then you need to manage your time better.

OR

‘Do you feel relaxed and happy about how things are going, and what will be, will be?’

If the answer is YES, then you need to manage your time better.

It’s easy to say, ‘manage your time better,’ but the real question is how?

The Eisenhower Matrix is a great way of doing it.

 All of your tasks can be divided into 4 categories based on how likely they are to help you achieve quota, and the more likely they are to get you an appointment, the sooner you should do them.

Sample Quadrant

You’ll notice that things like, ‘Somebody is going for a coffee run’ is not on this list.

And that’s really the most important thing about time management.

You have to take control and be strict about what gets your attention.

It’s nice to be part of a fun team, and it’s important to contribute to atmosphere. But if you want to succeed you have to focus. 

Prioritise your tasks according to the matrix and then:

1. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb and leave it in your bag

2. Recognise if a person is constantly taking your attention away from achieving your goals, and do not engage

3. Block your calendar for ‘A’ tasks and politely request for non-urgent meetings to be booked outside of these.

The people that succeed in business are the ones that make the most of their time. 

We all have exactly the same amount of time, you can’t buy more of it, you can only manage yourself better. If you can effectively organise yourself to spend more time booking meetings than the person sitting next to you, then YOU WILL book more meetings than them. Just knowing this and doing it will help you have great success now and in the future.