The beginning of the year (now) is when a good part of what I call “unseen” work gets accomplished.

It’s the planning, the list-making, the thinking, the reviewing. It’s when we create starting points for the rest of the year.

But do you reward that unseen work? Probably not because it’s unseen and hard to track.

Everyone does their planning in a different way. My process will be very different than yours. And we’re lazy. Creating a new process just to track something for a short period of time isn’t cool or sexy. It seems like a lot of work for little payout.

I disagree. Unseen work makes the “seen” work possible and profitable. Taking time to do the planning makes me efficient AND effective.

Work with your managers to find a simple way for them to help track their sales people’s “unseen” work and reward it.

It will pay dividends in the future months.

Unseen work is usually the most valuable work. Reward it.