If you’ve never sat down and calculated your hourly wage, I suggest you do.

Recently I was speaking with a sales person who was on track to make over $200K for the year. I was trying to emphasize how a particular client was wasting his time. Amidst the argument I showed how much billing this account had compared to others and if he had just spent his time in other places he could double or triple the income off this one account and fire that particular account in the mean time.

Lets look at it like this, if you earn $200K a year then your hourly wage is roughly $96.15. When putting this into perspective you have to look at how much of a waste of time that certain tasks are. As a commissioned sales person you could spend up to three hours sitting in traffic, meeting with a new prospect, and driving back to the office before you even settle in to work on a new account. That’s over $288.45 in wasted time.

This also pertains to meetings internally that you are invited to but don’t necessarily need to contribute to. Often times we are sucked into meetings that require our full attention only to make a few side comments when the meeting is finished. Ask ahead of time if you will bring value to the meeting or if you can catch up with someone who attended it later to learn more. Remember, your hourly wage is what the company expects you to be delivering on and if it’s time wasted then it’s money wasted.

And last, we’re all guilty of it from time to time but how much money does your company spend paying you to get coffee with your peers. Sure it may only be a 30 minute break here and there for you to walk down the street and grab a cup of coffee, refresh your morning and get back to your desk, but if you do two of these half hour breaks a day, a few times a week, then you’re wasting some serious dollars of your own. Your value is too high to be wasting time this way.

If you want to improve your efficiency then calculate your hourly wage and make sure that every hour you spend at work is at your pay grade.