Salespeople-How Many Hours Can You Hack It On The Phone?

In one of the "Dirty Harry" movies, Clint Eastwoodrecommended eight-hour shifts. The productivity
quietly says, "A man must know his limitations."Veryplummets dramatically, I've found after five hours.You
true, and this definitely applies to phone work, whethershould experiment; especially if you're an independent
you're prospecting, appointment setting, or closingbusinessperson, or you're in sales and are permitted to
deals.It's not a topic I think about all that much, but itallocate your time as you wish.By the way, if your
coursed through my mind tonight, as I was developingtolerance level is only an hour or two, it's not wimpy to
a prospecting campaign that I intend to execute,acknowledge it, and act accordingly, because, after all,
myself.I think people have different fatigue settings, butDirty Harry is right!Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of
they're unaware of them.For me, doing outbound callingCustomersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote
for an hour, and I mean a solid one, without breaks, isspeaker, management consultant, and seminar leader
no big deal. In fact, I just start warming up, getting myand the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach
phone voice strapped on at the half-hour point.TwoOut & Sell Someone(R) and Monitoring, Measuring &
hours, with a quick break in there, is alsoManaging Customer Service, and the audio program,
comfortable.And that's it; my current sweet spot, and"The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success
no more.So, my campaign will entail two hours ofInevitable," published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a
outbound for a month, and I expect it will yield optimalfrequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A
results for me.I realize it's not practical to have twoPh.D. from USC's Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer,
hour shifts at my clients' sites, so at minimum, weand an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at
schedule four hour sets for their employees. But whenClaremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs
I started doing outbound selling for Time-Life Books,through UCLA Extension and numerous universities,
we worked only 3 hours per night, and 4 hours ontrade associations, and other organizations in the
Saturday morning, and it was ideal for collegeUnited States and abroad. He holds the rank of
students.The phone can be a grind, and I've neverShodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate.