Meet Ed and Ben, who are salesmen at the same company. Ed earns RM5,000 a month; Ben makes RM15,000.

Ed is frustrated as he puts in long hours and plenty of energy and effort at his job. Yet, his sales results are subpar compared with Ben’s.

Why? Is it because Ben is more charming, fortunate, and well connected? While these factors do play a part, what Ed doesn’t realise is that income is mostly earned through delivery of value, which is based on results and not amount of time.

In other words, the issue here is about productivity, not the number of hours spent at work. Here are four points to further illustrate this.

1. Hourly rates

Let’s assume Ed works 250 hours a month. This would mean his hourly rate works out to be RM20 (RM5,000 divided by 250 hours).

Meanwhile, Ben works 150 hours a month, or 40% less time than Ed. His hourly rate would be RM100 (RM15,000 divided by 150).

Thus, from an income perspective, Ben is five times more productive within his hour of work than Ed is.

In fact, Ben could work fewer hours and still earn more than Ed would, while having more free time to do as he wishes – including finding other ways of generating side income.

2. Low- and high-value work

To Ed, work is work. He views all tasks within his job scope as of equal significance and value. In a typical 10-hour work day, Ed would allocate his time as follows:

For him, client meetings are of high value as they bring in sales and, hence, commission. Ed spends 50 hours a month (20% x 250 hours) with customers.

In those hours, he might meet about 20 customers and land himself two sales worth RM1,000 each in commission every month.

As such, in addition to RM3,000 in basic salary, Ed would earn RM2,000 in commissions, bringing his monthly income to RM5,000.

So, what is the value of those 50 hours spent with his customers? The answer: RM40 per hour (RM2,000 divided by 50 hours).

And what is the value of his remaining 200 hours of work? RM15 per hour (RM3,000 divided by 200 hours).

In a nutshell, Ed earns less as he spends 80% of his time on lower-value work. He should find ways to reduce the time spent on these and focus more time on high-value tasks to raise his income.

For example, if he added 50 more hours with customers, he could potentially add two sales a month, lifting his commission to RM4,000 and, in turn, his monthly income to RM7,000.

3. Saving time

Ed spends about an hour with his clients, who are usually located close to his office. But every now and then he would receive a sales call from someone who is located 50km away from his workplace.

As Ed would need two hours to make this round trip, it would be more practical for a colleague who is located closer to meet this customer. This might potentially free up Ed’s time to meet with two more customers, which could lead to more sales.

In short, Ed needs to be more creative and strategic with his time allocation to boost his current income.

4. Supercharge your skills

If Ed makes two sales from meeting 20 clients a month, this means his conversion rate is 10%. What if he could boost this to 20%?

The 10% increase would require two additional sales, or RM2,000 in extra commission, a month. Ed could potentially raise his annual income by RM24,000 or even more – but he would need to know how to be a better salesman.

Therefore, it would bode well for Ed to learn how to upgrade his skills. What he could do is to sign up for seminars or a sales-training course, which would help him realise his true income potential.

Of course, this would involve some expenditure on his part, but nothing beneficial is ever really free. If you wish to supercharge your high-value work, you need to invest in learning, and this needs to be an ongoing endeavour.

This article first appeared in KCLau.com. Ian Tai is a financial content writer, dividend investor, and author of many articles on finance featured on KCLau.com in Malaysia, and ‘Fifth Person’, ‘Value Invest Asia’ and ‘Small Cap Asia’ in Singapore.