Are You Leaving Sales on the Table?

A Time Audit Might Surprise You

Are you making “enough sales”? It’s a question that keeps every business owner up at night. Here’s the catch; there is no one size fits all answer. When it comes to “enough sales” it’s just like life in general, “enough” is based on the individual. For some “enough” is just the essentials, for others it’s a yacht. The real answer is, “enough sales” covers overhead, reinvestment into the business, and pays the owner what they want to make. You need to calculate what “enough sales” is for your business to thrive. Hopefully, you already have that, and you’re here reading this thinking, ok, so how do I make “enough sales”?

What I’ve Seen

Over a decade of working with business owners, at times up to 17 simultaneously, I gained a clear understanding of patterns that indicate success and failure. One pattern I’ve seen time and time again is a healthy balance of sales & marketing and operations. When sales & marketing too far outweighs operations, often you may find quality issues, a bad reputation, and employees that don’t trust their company. On the other hand, when operations outweighs sales & marketing, I’ve seen the dreaded robbing “Peter to pay Paul,” prolific finger-pointing between the team members (empty hands tend to turn into pointed fingers), and the obvious… stress everywhere. If I see these symptoms in any business, I came to one question that I used as a compass in my consulting efforts.

That north star question that was very enlightening was “What percentage of your organization’s time is spent on sales & marketing?” Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer to that question either – a contractor that gets leads directly from an insurance company should have much less organizational time dedicated to sales & marketing than one that does not. Comparatively, a contractor that subs out labor should have much more time spent in sales & marketing than one who has all their work completed by employees on payroll.

That’s why it’s crucial to analyze how your team spends its time. Are you dedicating enough resources to the activities that directly drive revenue?

Calculate Your Sales & Marketing Power

Ready to find out where your team’s time really goes? Well, my method is to look at all employees’ FTE (Full Time Equivalent) metric, which scores them from .1 to 1 based on where they sit on a spectrum of minimal part-time to full-time. So, a canvasser working 20 hours a week would get .5 and a production manager would get 1. Then, I would examine each employee and deduct non-sales & marketing tasks from their number. An easy way to determine if their tasks are non-sales & marketing is to use a tip from Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy says salespeople only make money doing 3 things: prospecting, presenting, and closing. So, if it doesn’t fall in that category, it gets deducted.

Want to see where your team’s time really goes? Download our free Sales & Marketing Time Audit worksheet using the download button at the bottom of this post. It’ll help you calculate the percentage of your organization’s efforts dedicated to sales & marketing.

Here’s how it works:

• List Your Team: Start by listing out every role in your company, from the owner to part-timers.
• Calculate FTE: Next, determine each person’s FTE (Full-Time Equivalent). Remember, FTE represents the workload as a proportion of a full-time employee. For example, someone working 20 hours a week would have an FTE of 0.5, while a full-time employee would be a 1.
• Sales & Marketing Time: Now, for each role, estimate the percentage of their time spent on core sales & marketing activities. Think prospecting, presenting, and closing deals. If it doesn’t directly contribute to winning new business, it’s likely not core sales & marketing.
• Calculate and Analyze: The worksheet will automatically calculate the weighted average, showing you the overall percentage of your organizational time dedicated to sales & marketing. Compare this to industry benchmarks or successful businesses with similar models. If your number is too low, you might need to shift resources or adjust roles. If it’s surprisingly high, are you neglecting other critical areas?

What If You Need More Sales?

Once you’ve calculated the percentage of your organization’s time dedicated to sales & marketing, compare it to similar businesses that are achieving “enough sales.” If you’re falling short, it’s time to take action! Consider the following strategies to optimize your sales & marketing efforts and drive revenue growth:

• Add salespeople. Often easier said than done, and you need to have reliable lead gen, whether that is a process sales reps are responsible for that you provide, or you provide the leads themselves.
• Everyone is in sales, ensure everyone has incentive. Create a program that gives everyone in your organization an incentive to bring you leads; you might be amazed when leads come in from sources you didn’t expect. I worked with an owner to create a program like this and not only did it increase leads, it increased team morale and helped support a selling culture!
• Examine salespeople’s list of responsibilities. If your sales reps are bogged down in admin work, or using it as an excuse to not do the one thing that keeps the doors open, you need to consider if they need to be held accountable or that task needs to be removed from their plate so they can focus on what is most important.
• Examine your process for inefficiencies – redundancy, a lack of proactive measures in your processes, and manual tasks that could be automated are fertile ground for improvement. Focusing here could free up time that could be devoted to prospecting, presenting, and closing.
• Closely watch roles that aren’t involved in the core of your business. As businesses grow, they can pick up weight. Roles that don’t touch the customer journey, or directly manage those that do, add overhead to your business that require careful scrutiny. This can be the hardest to accept and deliver, but you must remember that your responsibility to the entire organization is much more important than that to an individual. Approach the situation with a positive mindset, focusing on the long-term health and success of your business.

Ready to Unlock Your Business’s Sales Potential?

Calculate your sales & marketing time allocation using the free Sales & Marketing Time Audit worksheet. If the results reveal an imbalance, don’t worry! The strategies outlined above can help you optimize your approach. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your progress and any questions you have in the comments below.

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