else, will assure your success in sales.
“New knowledge is of little value if it doesn’t change us, make us better
individuals, and help us to be more productive, happy and useful.” (Hyrum
Smith)
Action Exercises:
1. Take charge of your sales career today; resolve to double the amount
of time you spend face to face with prospects and customers.
2. Set clear sales and income goals for yourself, broken down by year,
month, week, day and hour.
3. Only do work that pays you the amount you want and need to earn
every hour; delegate, defer and eliminate everything else.
Time Power
4. Plan the activities of prospecting, presenting and following up that
you will need to engage in to achieve your sales and income goals;
discipline yourself to work on them all day, every day.
5. Prepare thoroughly for every sales call; do your homework on the
prospect and have everything you need to make a successful sale.
6. Reduce traveling time by organizing your sales territory in advance;
don’t waste time driving all over the city to see people.
7. Work all the time you work; don’t waste time in coffee breaks and
lunches. Spend the time working instead.
Chapter Twelve
The Philosophy of Time Management
“It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good
too, to make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.”
(George Horace Lorimer)
To be fully rounded as a person, you need a philosophy of time management.
You require a worldview that recognizes time as the one invaluable,
indispensable, irreplaceable ingredient of a successful, happy, highly
productive life. You need an attitude toward time as something more than
the clock or the calendar.
Time Power
How do you go about developing a philosophy of time management? First of
all, you take the long view. Look as far into the future as you can. All truly
successful people are those who have long time horizons.
Sociologist Dr. Edward Banfield at Harvard University wrote a ground-
breaking book in 1965 called The Unheavenly City. In this book, he explains
the results of his many years of research into the reasons for upward social
and economic mobility in our society, and in other societies.
The Best Predictor of Success
His research was devoted to uncovering the reasons for financial success,
and the predictors of social class in America. He wanted to know what
behaviors would most likely lead to increases in wealth from one generation
to another. As part of his work, he studied factors such as education,
intelligence, family background, race, occupation and other personal
attributes. He found that none of these were accurate predictors of upward
social mobility.
There were many people who ranked highly in one or more of these factors
but they still failed to move up during the course of their working lifetimes.
Many of them actually experienced downward social mobility. They ended
up earning less than their parents did at the same ages, and sometimes
considerably less.
Time Power
Dr. Banfield finally concluded that there was only one factor that could
accurately predict whether or not you were going to move upward and
onward financially and socially. He called it “time perspective.” He defined
time perspective as the period of time that you take into consideration when
making your day to day decisions, and planning your life.
Think Into the Future
He found that successful people were those who had a long time perspective.
They planned their lives in terms of five, ten and even twenty years into the
future. They evaluated and determined their choices and actions in the
present in terms of how those choices might effect them in the distant future,
and the consequences that might occur as a result of what they did right now.
As an example of long time perspective, it is traditional among the British
upper classes to register their children at Oxford or Cambridge as soon as
they are born, even though they won’t be attending for eighteen to twenty
years. They fill out the applications and go through the registration process
for their children exactly as if they were going to attend in the next semester.
In America, many parents open a college savings account for their children
as soon as they are born. They then add to this account regularly for many
years to assure that their children can get the very best education possible
when they grow up. These are examples of long time perspective.
The Common Attitude of Achievement
Time Power
This attitude of taking the long view seems to be common among most men
and women who achieve greatly in the course of their lifetimes. The longer
your sense of time perspective, the more likely it is that you will do the sort
of things, and make the kind of sacrifices in the short term, that will lead to
greater success in the long term. Your thoughtfulness about time today will
tend to increase your income and your social standing in the future.
The reverse is also true. As you move down the socio-economic latter, the
time perspective at each level becomes shorter. When you arrive at the very
bottom of the social pyramid, to the hopeless alcoholic or drug addict, you
find a time perspective of less than an hour, the time it takes to get one shot
or one drink. Often the time perspective of the person at the bottom of
society is only a few minutes. They do not think beyond the moment.
The average hourly worker has a time perspective of about two pay periods.
The salaried worker has a time perspective of about two months. As you
proceed up the socio-economic ladder, the time perspective lengthens until
you reach the most respected people in society, such as the family doctor.
The Most Respected Profession
In every study asking people who they consider to be the most respected
people in society, the family doctor ranks at the top. More people look up to
and respect the family doctor than any other professional occupation in our
society. Why is this? It is probably because we recognize that he or she has
spent eight, ten or even twelve years of study, internship, residency, and
practice to reach the point where he or she can become our doctor.
Time Power
The average doctor in America earns $132,000.00 per year. He will enjoy
high earnings and higher social standing for his entire life. He will have
complete job security. His children will have advantages not enjoyed by
most other children. But the average doctor has spent almost twelve years of
hard work and sacrifice preparing him or herself to earn that kind of money,
and achieve that level of social status. This is an example of long time
perspective that most people recognize and admire.
Long Time Perspective Predicts Social Class
Many immigrants arrive in America with no money and no language skills.
They then go to work at menial jobs, doing whatever they can to support
themselves. But even at low levels of income, they often save their money so
that their children can get a good education and have a chance at the
American dream. Even though they are poor, these are people with real
class. They have long time perspective.
In a way, these people starting at the bottom have better characters then
people who have had all the benefits of an American upbringing, but who
spend every single penny they can get their hands on with little thought for
the future. Their willingness to sacrifice in the short term so they can have
better futures demonstrates the qualities of vision, courage, self-discipline
and persistence. They have real class, even though they have little money.
You begin to move yourself upward in society the day you begin to take the
long view in your own life. The man or woman who consistently saves 10%
Time Power
of his or her income, and puts it away towards financial independence, is a
person who is virtually guaranteeing a higher quality of life for him or
herself, and their children. They have long time perspective.
Plan Your Life for the Long Term
Ask yourself, “What time period do I take into consideration when I set my
goals and make important decisions for my life?” Your answer to this
question largely shapes your entire future.
How far into the future do you look when you make decisions on how to
allocate your time and your resources? There is a rule that says, “Long time
perspective improves short term decision making.” The further ahead you
look when contemplating a current decision, the better decisions you will
make. Your long term success will be determined by the quality of all the
decisions you make in the short term. The cumulative result of good
decisions is the assurance that your long term goals will materialize exactly
as you had planned.
Many years ago, I worked for a wealthy man who started with nothing and
built a fortune worth more than $500 million dollars in real estate. He taught
me to think always of owning a piece of property for twenty years when I
was considering buying it. He said that if you think about owning the
property for twenty years, you will be much more alert to the strengths and
weaknesses of the investment in the moment.
Time Power
Keep Your Eye on the Summit
The long view sharpens the short view. This is one of the most valuable
pieces of advice I ever received. In your life, think as if you were on a long
hike climbing a mountain. Stop regularly and look up at the summit, your
eventual goal, and then adjust your footsteps to assure that every step is still
taking you in that direction.
One-way of determining your priorities in the short term is to analyze the
future impact of present decisions. An important choice or activity is one
that has a potential long-term impact on some part of your life. An action or
decision that is unimportant is something that can have little or no effect on
your life or future.
For example, reading a book, listening to an audio program or taking a
course that teaches you something valuable, giving you additional
knowledge or skills that you can use for many months or years, if not for the
rest of your life, is an activity with a high potential future impact on your
career. On the other hand, watching television, reading the sports page, or
taking a coffee break, no matter how well or how often you do it, will have
no effect on your future. And you are always free to choose.
Your Choices Determine Your Future
You see examples of this confusion over time perspective all around you. On
the same street living in two houses of similar value will be two different
families. Each family earns approximately the same amount of money. But
Time Power
one family has a twenty-year time perspective and the other family has little
or no time perspective at all.
Over the years, the family with long time perspective will carefully save,
invest and accumulate an estate that will eventually enable them to retire in
comfort. The other family, earning the same amount of money, perhaps even
doing the same kind of work, but with no time perspective, will spend
everything they make and a little bit more besides. They will end their
working days with little or no money put aside.
If you were told today that unless you made some dramatic changes in the
way you earn and spend, you were going to be penniless when you reached
retirement, how would that affect your attitude toward your money? What
would you do differently in your work and financial life with such a
possibility hanging over your head? Well, the truth is that unless you begin
to do something different with your money today, that is very likely the way
you will end up. Because of limited time perspective, fully 95% of people
working today will end up either broke, dependent upon pensions or still
working when they reach the age of 65. Don’t let this happen to you.
Develop Your Own Character
The practice of thinking with long time perspective not only requires
character, but it also develops character in the person who does it. Character
is always the result of practicing self-discipline. Developing the habit of
taking the long view in decisions concerning health, wealth, relationships
and reputations requires self discipline at a high level.
Time Power
Character comes from thinking continually of living with each of your
decisions for the long term. Economists and sociologists generally agree that
the primary reason for economic failure and underachievement is the
inability to delay gratification. This is the tendency to spend everything you
make, and a little bit more, with little thought for the future. It is a lack of
time perspective with a regard to money. It virtually guarantees that you will
have financial problems throughout your life, and end up unable to retire
when you reach the age of 65.
Decide today to plan and act for the long term. Practice short term pain for
long-term gain. Be willing to pay the price of success in advance, in terms of
hard work, sacrifice and delayed gratification. Be prepared to sow before
you reap, and often you will have to sow for a long time before you can
bring in the harvest. Nowhere is this truer than in financial matters.
If you save and invest 10% of your income from the age of 21 to the age of
65 you will become a millionaire over the course of your working lifetime.
Most self made millionaires save 15% to 20% of their income and learn to
live comfortably on the balance. You should resolve to do the same. Think
long term. The quality of character that you will develop as a result of the
self-discipline you impose on yourself to become financially independent
will make you a truly exceptional human being.
Think Short Term as Well as Long Term
Time Power
If the first part of developing a philosophy of time management is to take the
long view, the second part is to take the short view. Treat your time like your
