There is a common perception that in our fast paced world we have become better multi taskers.  This idea is false however as what has really evolved is our ability to shift from one cognitive function to another.  We can switch our focus rapidly but often when we attempt to multitask, the cognitive function that we are ignoring suffers from our lack of attention.  Whether its reading an email while listening to someone on the phone, driving while talking on the phone, or doing homework while watching television, multi tasking is often inefficient.
According to David Meyer, switching from task to task increases the original task time by 25%.  The goal then is avoid this waste of time and focus customer support reps to effective measures.  A simple way to keep people focused is the implementation of an innovative customer relationship management platform.  This software can prioritize calls for both sales and customer support reps as well as schedule appointments.  Some companies even offer the ability to leave a pre-recorded voice mail automatically for the customer.  This keeps focus high.

Myth #2:  The best way to get more work done is to work longer hours.

A prevailing belief that needs to go extinct is this concept that in our modernized world we can work just like a cog in the machine for long hours with high pressure.  However, this is not true.  What matters most is the quality of energy that humans can give to an organization not the quantity.

Instead of the unrealistic expectation that employees can work like they are in a marathon, it is more important that they focus and work hard for a 90 minute period.  After this exercise, the employees relax and then prepare themselves for another 90 minute session.  By breaking work days into 90 minute chunks with each one having a recommital of focus and vision, employees do better.  Employees are more energized and this is transferred to the calls that they make to customers and potential leads.

Managers can help this process by getting a customer relationship management platform that sorts leads effectively.  Few things are as energizing as getting a sale and by providing sales reps with the best chances for success will only create a snowball effect of positive feelings and energy.  There are even tools to have a representative respond instantly to a customer inquiry.  This leads to a higher qualification rate and ultimately a better bottom line.

When Apple founder Steve Jobs passed away in early October, it was amazing to see how the world reacted to this visionary man.  There were candlelight vigils, countless moments of silence, and feelings and thoughts expressed on Twitter and Facebook.  This outpouring of emotion that was reminiscent to when Michael Jackson or Princess Diana passed away.  Its perhaps even more startling in this climate of economic recession, bailouts, and Occupy Wall Street, that the CEO of the largest tech company in the world was revered in such a way.  What did Steve Jobs do to merit such a farewell?  A look into what Steve Jobs said about life explains his appeal.

“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”

When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company has so many different products that it was diluting their talent.  They were making a bunch of mediocre products in many different markets instead of focusing on dominating one market.  Immediately Jobs decided to focus on only a few quality products.  The iMac was introduced in 1998 which was the beginning of Apple’s resurgence.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

The second lesson that Jobs implemented was a higher standard of excellence that was available in the market.  There are numerous apocryphal stories of Jobs’ demands on his design teams.  However, once the product was completed, Jobs was vocal in declaring to everyone that the product was the best on the market and more often than not, he was right.  The higher excellence standard that Jobs had for his employees was noticed by consumers.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Although Steve Jobs had an amazing string of success he did have his share of failures.  First, he was fired from his own company at the age of thirty.  When he did return to Apple there were some products that flopped, like the iCube or the initial release of AppleTV.  However, Jobs continued to persevere and although those individual products flopped, they eventually became successful products.  The iCube evolved to become the Mac Mini which was Apple’s affordable home computer.  AppleTV was a disaster but it was re-released with a lower price, a better explanation of it’s use, and an easier to use format and it became a successful product.  Jobs didn’t give up on products; he refined them until consumers recognized their value.

By simply following these three lessons from Steve Jobs, companies could serve their customers better.  The vision and perseverance of Steve Jobs led Apple to become the standard of the tech world.  So whether your company is a bakery, a hosted crm, or day care, these principles should become standard business practice.

In other words, the frequently heard whining from sales reps about their marketing-generated leads are at least moderately misguided. Some prospects won’t turn into revenue overnight, or even in the time frame the rep wants. But contrary to popular belief, it’s relatively rare for a sales lead to be total garbage.

The data is proof positive that it’s critical to to use effective lead management and nurturing, even if they aren’t going to move farther down the pipeline for some time—and a sales CRM can act as a important part of a prospect development program.

However, sales managers need to be careful that a drip campaign program doesn’t become a crutch, or a fallback for initial contacting, qualifying, and lead generation activities.. Why make prospecting calls and respond immediately to new leads when you can simply “nurture” them instead?

This is a dangerous state of affairs, because as the Sales 2.0 Network observes, when a rep fails to close a deal, it’s almost always a result of one of two things—you shouldn’t have been pursuing the opportunity to begin with because you weren’t the right fit, or you got outworked by a rival.

“Drip” marketing is potentially valuable, but immediate response principles are just as crucial, because they inoculate companies against both causes of lost sales. Immediate response means reps have a much higher probability of making contact. Your ability to set an appointment and start a viable needs analysis increases, and it happens in less time. Furthermore, fast lead response makes a better impression for the contact. You’ll have a greater ability to know immediately whether you’re you actually have a realistic shot of closing the deal, and generate an environment of trust in both the short- and long-term.

And if your company is also like most, the results are sometimes inconsistent. Some are decent, but others are terribly conceived, ill-defined, or utterly useless.

When the situation arises, there’s ultimately only two alternatives: deal with it, or get them changed.

The specifics vary, but in our experience unusable metrics rear their heads in one of three ways:

1. The real bottom-line result isn’t represented by what’s being measured.The concept is simple–if you want to change employee behavior, the metrics have to incentivize the change. Whether you want it to or not, when you change the unit of measurement, tactical and strategic approaches change with it.

   The majority of the time when the metric is getting the wrong results, it’s because it wasn’t built to get them.

2. No defined time frame.Even if the metric itself seems to be correct, the time frame for getting the results is completely off.

   Consider, for instance, that daily goal metrics shifts employee focus to the immediate, and away from the long-term. If you change measurement to weekly or monthly approaches it gives agents the chance to adapt their processes, because their entire focus isn’t on hitting the daily requirements.

   Neither is good nor bad depending on the context, just understand that the time frame affects employee processes.

3. Failing to recognize that when you add a new measurement, you’re also naturally taking something else away.When time is paramount, it’s easy to forget that employee time constraints are real. Choices have to be made about what they can get done in the time they have at work.

   Beyond a certain point, building new, more complex metrics no longer creates value; it merely forces people to ditch activities to meet the expectations most relevant to what they do.

   There’s no rule for determining what the limit is, just understand that employees without any other choice will finagle the sustem to keep their jobs.