Many salespeople today will waste a great deal of time calling on poor prospects – trying to turn poor prospects into customers, or trying to close prospects that do not want or need what they are selling.

One of the key characteristics in more effective territory management is doing a better job of qualifying prospects prior to giving them your time, energy or corporate resources.

Let’s look at a few ways to better manage your resource of time and territory management.

1. Ask more effective questions earlier in the sales process.
2. Pay attention to answers to determine whether this is a good time to try and sell this prospect.
3. Develop a customer profile to use as a template for your prospecting.
4. Audit your sales call activity by dividing the number of calls you make in a week by the number of miles you drive in that week. This number will give you your call route effectiveness.
5. Spend more prospecting time getting referrals.
6. Develop strategic alliances to help you improve your prospecting activity.
7. Plan your call activities early in the week, month or day.
8. Don’t give poor prospects more time than they deserve.
9. Get up earlier.
10. Go to bed later.
11. Use this extra time for planning, thinking or evaluating your routines.
12. Develop a daily checklist of what you will need to be effective.
13. Keep accurate sales records. The more information you keep, the better able you will be to spot potential trouble areas.
14. Try to get more of your prospects to visit your location, plant or office.
15. Don’t spend time giving presentations to non-decision makers.

Even if you only do half of these, you will find your time will be better spent and you will experience better overall sales results.