Pick Up The Phone and Sell

CHAPTER 18THE POWER OF A POMODORO TIMER

So we've honed in on doing three to five proactive calls per day, first thing in the morning. We've discussed how these fast and easy efforts add up for dramatic results.

Let me give you another tool to help you get your calling done: a pomodoro timer. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, so it's not a surprise that the pomodoro timer originated as a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato. You'd turn the top half (of the plastic tomato!), and it would tick down to zero and then ding.

Well, the productivity folks adopted the concept into the digital world. For our purposes, a pomodoro timer is a simple app you can download onto your computer, tablet, or smartphone. Certain apps have a version for each of those platforms, and if you get the paid version, the timer continues seamlessly from one device to the next. That is, you can start the timer on your computer and walk away with your phone, and the timer will automatically continue there.

WHY USE A POMODORO TIMER?

I've found a pomodoro timer very effective for various parts of my work, especially for making calls.

Why? Because sometimes, when you have an undefined window of time, it's hard to start something important that isn't urgent.

Proactive calls are easy to avoid:

This is because, by their very definition, proactive calls are not urgent (but they are very important to your sales success).

Instead of making calls, we'll browse the Internet, check the news, look at last night's ...