A Road-map to Success

 As I said in a previous post, it's easier to teach a hard worker to sell then to teach a salesman to work hard. There is no substitute for hard work. Waking up every day and putting in a full day's work will always be the secret to success in sales. Working hard is great but working smart is what separates the top 10% from the rest of the pack! Technology is helping sales professionals work smarter then ever before.

Google Maps allows you to create your own custom map that can help you minimize driving time, drop in on potential clients, or visit current customers. Everyone has used Google maps at some point but Google Maps Engine is a bit less known-

Google Maps Engine-

To begin creating your map CLICK HERE.

 

Once you are here you click on the "Create a new map" button. This will bring you to your new map. From here you can import a list of your clients or prospects. To import a list first start by creating an excel spreadsheet that has at least the following two columns on it:

 A) Names

        B) Addresses 

 Save your excel spread sheet and then click the "Import" link on your new map.

Once you have imported your excel spreadsheet, just follow the on screen prompts. The first thing that you need to do is tell google which columns on your excel spreadsheet contains the addresses that needs to be plotted. If you forget which one it is you can click the little grey question mark next to the choices presented and a yellow box with a preview will pop up.

You will then be asked to follow this same process for the "Names" in the next screen. Once this is completed your new map will be ready to use. You can now customize the look and feel of your new map. One of my favorite features is the ability to outline specific areas on the map and create "Zones" as seen in the zone outlined in white in my example below

If you hover over one of your plotted points on the map with your cursor, a white box pops up with all the information that you included on the excel spreadsheet that you created. I like to create a column on my excel spreadsheet called "notes" and leave it blank because then you have a place on your map to take notes (as seen below):

One of the most powerful things to do with your map is to email the URL to yourself and then open it up on your smart phone. You can then save the map to your homepage and you will create an "App" that has all of your clients. Since your mobile device has GPS you can even see where you are currently located on the map with a little blue dot. Say you get done with an appointment early and you have an extra 15mins to kill, well instead of wasting that time you could pull up your map and see which potential clients are close to your current location. 

 

Hopefully this helps. Create a map and work smart. Wasting those 15 mins in between appointments can add up to quite a bit of wasted time. Using Google map engines can help you capture opportunities that would otherwise go wasted.