Becoming a top salesperson requires a high level of discipline like other challenging professions. Athletes, physicians, architects, lawyers - name the profession, and the people at the top exercise discipline to stay ahead, and for them discipline is just a way of life.

There is a sales discipline known as staying on the right side of the “trouble line” or making sure to make best use of “pay-time”. Pay-time is 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., or whatever part of the day is best for interacting with prospects in a particular industry.

This is the time of day when prospects can meet, referrals can be contacted, appointments can be set, and customers can be serviced with direct interaction.

“No pay-time” activities like planning, training, paperwork, and attending meetings are important too, but a disciplined sales person uses no pay-time, as much as possible, to accomplish them. No pay-time activities should be done ideally before and after whatever pay-time is in a particular industry.

Disciplined salespeople must constantly decide when to use pay-time to accomplish no pay-time activities; and should always be conscious of when they are crossing the pay-time trouble line.

A Double-hit: When salespeople do no pay-time activities during pay-time hours, they can lose more than just an opportunity to sell that day. If they know they are supposed to be prospecting for new business, but they choose to do something else, like clean their office, they are engaged in what is called “constructive avoidance”. Constructive avoidance leads to guilt feelings from squandering the day, and this can carry over and reduce their motivation the next day, causing a downward spiral in their attitude, another day will likely be wasted, and so on.

It’s easier for salespeople on straight salary to violate the trouble line rule than it is for those who get paid on commission, so I recommend that companies pay at least partially on commission. Salaried salespeople usually don’t feel the urgency that a commission sales person does because they assume they’re going to collect the same paycheck whether they use pay-time wisely or not, so pay-time management seems a less critical issue. The flaw in this logic is obviously that if they’re spending too much time on the wrong side of the trouble line, they will likely ultimately be terminated.

Journaling Self-fulfills Another discipline salespeople should use to best manage pay-time is to use a day journal to set daily goals. All of the very best sales performers begin the day by setting a plan for it. I suggest to all of my clients that they should invest five minutes a day to set goals on paper for the number of phone calls to warm and cold leads, referral queries with clients, walk-in calls, network events, prospect and client meetings and appointments. The plan should also include time allocation for any use of pay-time for necessary no pay-time activity, so that pay-time loss is minimized. Balance or Hysterical Activity: It’s easy to recognize salespeople who have no discipline in the use of their pay-time. They’re the hysterically busy people, because instead of pacing themselves and managing their time wisely, they fall behind in their work. At the end of the month they scramble to make their quotas, scheduling back-to-back-to-back sales calls. This hysterical activity is inefficient because the salesperson feels a building pressure to perform that their prospects may feel. The pressure a prospect feels is the biggest killer of healthy and honest business relationships, so sales effectiveness is reduced. And this problem can be avoided if a salesperson consistently spends five minutes a day making their plan to stay on the right side of the trouble line.

Be a Pro: Becoming a top salesperson requires a high level of discipline like other challenging professions, and the most important discipline required is to effectively manage their most precious resource: pay-time. The top athletes, physicians, architects, lawyers all exercise discipline to stay ahead in their field.

In many ways, sales can be at least as complex as these professions when you consider how many variables need to be managed just to close a single sale. Even top salespeople will never be able to completely control a buyer’s behavior, so most of them come to realize that to be their best; they must control what they can; their own behavior and effective use of their daily calendar.