How Demandbase’s David Mordzynski Structures His Workday To Get The Most Out Of His Time...And His Quota

Sadly, it’s a story we all know much too well: you get in the office bright and early with a long list of things to get accomplished, only to have your planned productive day derailed by surprise task after surprise task.

And no matter how “small” the unexpected job is, it takes time to complete. Add that all up and before you know it, the day is done and you’re staring at the same list you were in the morning.

Sigh. There’s always tomorrow, right?

Well, of course, there is always tomorrow. And the next day after that, too. But when you’re prospecting hundreds of leads, each day is critical. Falling behind is a quick trip to producing poor quality work and, eventually, missing your number.

And no one, bosses included, wants that.

To avoid that damaging, yet all too easy pitfall, Demandbase’s David Mordzynski has designed a holistic daily program (SDR Time Management 101, he calls it) to ensure he stays on the ball and, ultimately, gives him the best chance to hit and exceed his quota each month.

“Bill Gates’ philosophy was to get the laziest person at Microsoft to do the hardest job because that person will find the quickest way to get the job done,” says Mordzynski, on a recent edition of The Predictable Revenue Podcast.

“My philosophy, because I work very hard, is if I can take my hard work and pair it with my time management hacks, what will happen?”

For Mordzynski, workday efficiency starts with judging the importance and the urgency of each individual task he’s presented with. To rate those responsibilities, Mordzynski uses The Eisenhower Matrix – a simple framework used to classify tasks as either high importance and high urgency, or low importance and low urgency (or some mix of the two).

If a task ranks in both high categories, it gets done immediately. Conversely, if a job ranks low on importance and urgency, it gets pushed down the line.

”You’re going to have people coming up to you every single day, saying ‘I need this, I need that.’ This will ensure you are working on the most important tasks,” adds Mordzynski.

“If you think about it, any task, any idea you have, you can bucket it according to this framework.”

Of course, meticulously ranking all of your responsibilities requires organization and a centralized place to access them. No sense in assigning urgency only to forget the task exists, right?

To keep track of his jobs, Mordzynski records everything in Trello, an online task management tool. From the list he consistently builds in Trello (Mordzynski is always adding ideas to his Trello list), he ranks their importance and chooses 3-5 of them each day to complete.

(Note – Mordzynski uses Trello because it’s free, cloud-based and has a good UI. But, there are plenty of other task / project management tools available. Test them all out before deciding which one is right for you.)

And Mordzynski doesn’t stop there – he also employs Pareto’s Law, commonly known as the 80 / 20 Rule, to make sure he’s executing his tasks at the right time. For those that aren’t familiar with the 80 / 20 Rule, the basic premise is that 20% of your actions will produce 80% of your results. As such, efficiency is paramount.

So, for example, Mordzynski sends his emails at 4 pm on Thursdays because that’s when he gets the best response rate. He also religiously uses email cadences, each of which he built to reflect the different types of leads he may work at any given time. By having cadences built, he saves time writing the dozens and dozens of emails and LinkedIn InMail’s he’s’ responsible to send while prospecting.

He also had Demandbase’s Salesforce Admin build him reports that show what, if any, relationship there is between all of the prospects he’s booking for meetings. What he found was his best leads had visited / interacted with Demandbase’s website within the previous day or so. As a result, Mordzynski knows to work those leads first.

Finally, Mordzynski colour codes the blocks on his calendar each day to illustrate which of those blocks are Revenue Generating Activities (RGAs) and which aren’t. This way, he can easily see how much time he spends on jobs that don’t bring in any money.

“If you’re not doing an RGA as often as possible, you’re, frankly, not doing your job,” says Mordzynski.

“If you’re not hitting your number, this is one of the first things I would look at to make a change. You can correlate this to your pipeline very easily.”

To be sure, each of these activities is an effective time management tool. But, how does Mordzynski keep his over-all day on track?

Trello helps him choose which 3-5 activities he’s going to work on. And his adherence to the 80 / 20 rule ensures he’s always doing the most rewarding task first. But, how does he break up his day? How does he choose which task to do when he gets in, and which responsibilities to do before he leaves?

According to Mordzynski, it’s as simple as drafting a daily program.

“Another system that I’ve created, and I think it’s the most important factor, is my morning routine,” says Mordzynski.

“I know if I do these steps, it will set me up for success each day.”

Mordzynski’s morning checklist:

- First things first: log into Trello and choose 3-5 important tasks for the day (only choose 3-5 because it’s manageable, and you’ll be able to get them done);
- Then, check Salesforce reports (who are the HOT leads based on recent activity?)
- Then, check email sequencing tool (do I have any outstanding tasks or cadence steps to run?)
- Finally, only respond to emails which need immediate action.

“Using these steps, especially the first three, you will have a really good picture of what you need to get done in a day,” says Mordzynski.

“And, it’s critical to note, I will never check my emails first thing in the morning, because it immediately puts me in reactive mode. These 3-4 steps give me the confidence in starting the day the best way possible.”

For more on Mordzynski’s efficiency best practices, check out his most recent appearance on The Predictable Revenue Podcast.