Time Management - Is Time Management the "Achilles Heel" of Network Marketers?

Most network marketers, (myself included), like the idea of being your own boss and taking direct responsibility for the success of your business. Interesting I didn't say failure in the last sentence, because no one wants to fail, There is, however, a "plague" going around that is infecting network marketers, and it will take many marketers to their business "death". The name of this plague is Time Management.My wife of 33 years will tell you, when I started in marketing I was the absolute WORST when it came to time management. I was (according to her) wasting a lot of time that could otherwise be put to good use. Let me give you 2 "suggestions" on areas where I try to control this menace on a day to day basis.Prospecting:All good marketers started with a prospecting script, and now that they are successful they kind of "wing it". Well, that just makes for a lot of superfluous chat, and you can't afford that time!For the next 100 prospects you speak to, write down the starting time, and the ending time. Also write down the starting time of you prospecting "session" and how many people you spoke to before. Your time investment is maybe 30 seconds here, a total of 50 minutes.Now take 10 minutes, (so you've invested 60 minutes total) and put a check mark on everyone on that list who is "in your business". Now look at your list. Do you notice anything interesting?My analysis showed that after 5-10 calls in any 1 session, my chit-chat time went down, and my success rate went up Basically that tells me I talk too much in the beginning, and I have a better success rate without. I need to spend less time, and I have a better result.Closing:Now that you understand the process of compiling those statistics on yourself, do the same with you closing attempts. Besides the time, also note if you tried any different closing "styles". Maybe money was a problem, so you had to do some "constrictive financing". Maybe this person was a very logical "Red" person, so you used the "Ben Franklyn" close. Note this carefully and then, after 50-100 attempts do another analysis.Again, for me, shorter and more concise is better, AND I found a couple of different closes that ranked well above the average. Now I know how best to allocate my time in this area.I continue to do this every week, now it takes almost no time. I complete the notes after I finish dialing the next number, and wait for the person to answer.In Conclusion:Being critical of yourself is a big step in being successful. Embrace your strengths, and work on your weaknesses even harder! I invested 2 hours of time for the first 100 prospects and 100 closes, and now I see a return of over 10-15 hours a month because of this exercise.