1) Use This Time For Some Of Your Internal Discussions: If you are continually bombarded with people who chew up your time at work, consider using your drive time for this. Doing this helps you maximize the time in your office and helps you stay on task.
One quick disclaimer: You’re not going to get ahead in this world by continually blowing people off. Use this one sparingly dude.
2) Use This Time To Make Note Of The Businesses You Pass: I call this technique a “drive by” and I’ve mentioned it on my blog numerous times. Get a digital voice recorder and simply jot down the names of the businesses you pass and presto you have a daily supply of businesses to place in your funnel.
Note: Don’t use the recorder on your phone for this. Try fumbling for that feature on your phone and it becomes too much of a hassle.
3) Use This Time To Rehearse: Call your own voice mail on the way to the office. Evaluate your message through the ears of a prospect/client. Take that digital recorder I keep suggesting you buy and tape a presentation you plan on making one day soon.
4) Use This Time To Spar: Work it out with a teammate or fellow sales jedi to call each other and role play a phone call to a prospect. Throw objections at each other, critique, rinse and repeat.
5) Use This Time To Think: Yep, I can hear you say “No Duh Paul”. Fair enough, I’m sure you already knew that one, but do you jot your thoughts down on that handy dandy voice recorder? Otherwise you’re just daydreaming dude!
6) Use This Time To Get Smarter: According to the University of Southern California, if you drive 12,000 miles a year and listen to instructional Cd’s, at the end of 3 years you will have the equivalent of a 2 year degree. Since we never seem to have enough time to hone our craft, why wouldn’t you use your drive time?
Suggestion: Go to I-Tunes right now and subscribe to my free Sales Playbook Podcast I make a cool, informative travel companion and I even shut up when you hit the stop button. Can you say “Road Trip”?
7) Call A Talker: Do you have people that you have to communicate with that might get a tad long winded? The beauty of having that conversation during drive time is that you can use that as your excuse to have a clear cut end to the call. And if you are a real SOB you can even have the call mysteriously drop.
8) Use This Time To Get Into Optimal Kick Butt State: Set up a playlist on your I-Phone or burn a CD of all the songs that make you want to rip bumpers off of cars!
9) Use This Time To Decompress!: Set up another playlist to help you take a chill before you get home.
So there you have it gang. 9 ways for you to maximize your drive time.
What else can we add to the list?
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Awesome Paul. As much as I drive, ideas like this are great. Plus, as you mentioned above, doing different ‘stuff’ while driving, or as I call it ‘crosstraining’ really helps doing the same ‘ol book on CD day in and day out.
Thanks for starting my week off the right way– as you always do.
Marcus
Great! A perfect opportunity to thank the two guys I read the most. Thanks for all the encouragement and knowledge. It’s because of you Marcus I decided to take my pool business in a whole new direction back in Vegas earlier this year. And to you Paul.. thanks for all the great tips and words of wisdom that keeps the ball rolling in the right direction. Keep up the good work.
Tim
Love this one…especially number 6! To think all these years on the road, that I missed out on earning a new degree!!
Paul, Nice action tips again… after I left management and hit the road for 17 years I had to train myself to sell (even tho I had managed sales guys twice my age for 10 years) …so I used windshield time to listen to sales training (cassette) tapes from Brian Tracy, Tony Allessandra, Jim Rohn, Nido Quebein, Denis Waitley, Tom Hopkins, and Anthony Parinello…all of that was better than my college education.
Then I put the tips into action to win… John
Paul is right, when you listen to his Podcasts and hit stop, he does shut up…but not for long!
All of it is GREAT! My favorite (and my mantra) is INVEST in your success…..CD’s, instructional tapes, mp3 podcasts … etc. TRAIN yourself while you drive.
Invest 3% of your income in your training.
Love, The Irreverent Sales Girl
i use this time to tweet… (but only when the wife is driving) 🙂 thanks for sharing this. great post. i find the time that i do the most learning is out in the yard. just fire up the ipod with a podcast or book on tape.
Great post Paul, I actually use this time to argue with myself. This way I always win.
Great post Paul, I actually use this time to argue with myself. This way I always win.