Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes – Simply Sales with Scott

 

Written By: Scott Koepf, Vice President of Strategic Development – Cruise Planners  

 

Even if you are not familiar with the musical Rent, you have probably heard the signature song from this revolutionary rock musical. 525,600 minutes are in a year and the song poses the question of how we measure the value of that time? We all know that time management is a continuing challenge but it may be the most important skill for success in any career.

 

There are many experts who now think the term ‘time management’ is actually passé as we can’t really manage time at all. We all have access to the exact same number of minutes in a year and so that number can’t actually be managed. However what we do with those minutes and the decisions we make as to how to make best use of those minutes will be what allows us to reach our goals or desires. Even the terminology of ‘balancing our time’ is considered wrong these days. Most of us have been taught to balance our priorities and our time between work, family, friends, fun and more. The simple truth is that those areas will never be in balance. For most of us we spend more time working than we do with our family. Yet most of us would also say that family is our first priority (a recent survey found that over 90% of people said family was their first priority). So if family is our top priority but work is our top time taker then if our goal is balance, we would be considered failures. I don’t think that is the right conclusion and I agree that the word balance is not the right term for how we spend our 525,600 minutes. Trying to balance our time spent to match our priorities will not only be an exercise in futility but will cause depression.

 

Many of us have set New Year’s resolutions (or will if one of your resolutions was to stop procrastinating!), so now is the time to set the best way to determine how you want to ‘spend’ your time. I will once again rely on the lyrics to this beautiful song as it asks how you ‘measure’ a year. Is it the things we do, the places we go, the sales we make, the achievement of our goals? Those are all important and can certainly be a part of your plan but the real important measurement of the time you spent is just like the song says…..LOVE!

 

For those of you who think I am too over the top here and way too sentimental, then consider this tough love!! When all is said and done, love is the main thing we should strive for as the legacy of our own 525,600 minutes. But this is not all emotional blabbering, as it applies to our businesses and how we spend time there. If you spend all of your minutes processing transactions and crossing items off of your to do lists, then the end result may not bring the true achievements you want. You are in the travel business but actually you are in the people business and if your focus is on loving your clients then they will love you back and all of the sales and business goals will follow from there. So sing these lyrics below and ask yourself as you set your resolutions, how to measure your year.

 

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes – how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?
How about love? How about love? How
about love? Measure in love.
Seasons of love.