6 Ways to Improve Your SDR Workflow

Working late again? Time management and focus are always a priority and it can be challenging to get everything done during the regular 9 to 5 grind. With only so many hours in the day, how to make the most of them? Avoid extra time in the office with these tips to help you work smarter.

Create a Daily Calendar.
Knowing what you need to accomplish before you even start your day helps you focus on what’s pressing and what can wait. Dedicate a focused block of time at the beginning of the week for buyer research instead of a few minutes before the call. This helps ensure you’re ready, not rushed when you speak to the potential lead. Another scheduling tip: set aside time to read and respond to email, rather than responding reactively as you receive new messages. Depending on how crazy your inbox looks, set aside enough time to respond to any action items—don’t let your email become something that pulls you off task.

Improve Inbox Management.
When your inbox is organized, you spend less time in it because you only see the emails that are important. Organize your inbox with labels, folders and categories and take action immediately once you open an email (even if that means just placing it into a folder). This way, messages that need to be dealt with don’t stack up. Also, unsubscribe to newsletters that don’t provide value and change settings for social app notifications so that whatever makes it to your inbox is actually important.

Avoid Useless Meetings.
If a meeting isn’t necessary and you can help it, skip it. Many problems can be handled through email or over the phone instead of bringing everyone into a meeting. You can dedicate a certain amount of time to internal meetings, but protect all other time for prospecting. Try to keep meetings short and excuse yourself when your involvement is no longer needed. Too often, meetings get sidelined by unproductive chatter or teammates wanting to voice their opinion when it might not be necessary. Make sure your team respects and values each other’s time by limiting the number of meetings and sticking to an agenda to ensure productivity.

Use a Social Media Management System.
Apps like Hootsuite help keep all your social media activity centralized so it’s easy to monitor hashtags, replies and mentions across all of your profiles. By setting up a social media management system, you can easily share content and engage with prospects. This builds relationships that could lead to calls.

Use Email Management Tools.
Tools like SaneBox work on top of your email account to prioritize important emails and summarizes the rest so you can get a quick snapshot of your inbox at a glance.

Automate Administrative Activities.
Admin activities are a headache for most people, but there are a ton of Salesforce tools you can implement. Use pipeline automation platforms to free up your time from things like updating your CRM so you can focus on selling instead of mindless data entry.

There may be some growing pains at first, but once you’ve analyzed how you spend your time and adjusted it accordingly, the benefits trump the initial headaches.

Let us know if these tips work for you!

Any others you can share? Drop some knowledge in the comments below.

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