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doers in life – and the hopers, who are passive, stand by hoping that things will work out, while the doers actually go out and take action,” he says. “But I also think there are ‘hopeful doers,’ who have hope, which fosters desire and results in action and success.” He feels that the keys to sales man- agers creating a hopeful sales envi- ronment are honesty, responsiveness, and making it easy. “Selling is hard enough with rejection, long hours, and dealing with difficult people in tough situations, so it’s important to create a consistent place of trust – a safe haven for salespeople,” he says. “It’s impor- tant to have structure, to have a plan in place, to do everything in your power to properly execute that plan, and to support your people in action…and to have hope that your plan, strategy, and execution will work.”


This manager has identified six key


areas for managers to consider. The first is commitment. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a salesperson with one week on the job right out of college or a seasoned pro- fessional, the very first thing they have to do is commit themselves to succeed and achieve the plan,” he says. “Don’t hire fatalists. Hire people who are will- ing to make a commitment and hit their targets no matter what it takes.” His second key area is for managers to deploy or empower the employee sales plan. This targets all levels of the organization. “The plan – whether based on annual, monthly, or weekly parameters – has to be deployed from the general manager to the sales leader to the channel directors to regional sales managers and to the salespeople…anyone who interfaces with the customers,” he says. “They need to make sure each individual within the organizational structure un- derstands their piece of the week, of the month, and of the year. Of course, the company needs to support them by letting them know how they are doing all the time.” The third point is to “create a fun- nel of activities and initiatives that exceeds the gap between what a


salesperson knows he has sold by a specific date and the monthly goal by twice as much,” he says. “Let’s say a salesperson has a commitment of $1,000,000 a month and the com- mitments and orders in hand equal $500,000 – so they have a $500,000 gap. That means the salesperson, who isn’t perfect and can’t close every deal, needs to have at least $1,000,000 in his funnel.


“The fourth key is to connect the dots,” he explains. “A salesperson is never just a salesperson or just a marketing person or resource. He needs to be a mini-general man- ager and realize that the job can’t be successfully completed unless other functions are tied into what they need to do.” He adds, “For example, if you find somebody who wants to buy something, are you guaranteed that manufacturing has built it or is going to build it? Does finance like what you have in your pipeline at the margin you’re offering it?” The fifth key is to refuse to be a victim. “There are always excuses for losing, but there are no excuses needed for winning – only reasons,” he advises. “If a salesperson says, ‘I can get this product in my funnel, but we don’t have the product to sell,’ he becomes a victim. If he can complete


the sentence by saying, ‘Instead of doing this, I’m going to do that,’ then he is a catalyst for success. “The final key is, as a manager, to


recognize that it’s important to cel- ebrate, share, and recognize successes and accomplishments,” he says. “Suc- cess normally doesn’t happen by ac- cident. By promoting that success and the individuals who make it happen, you are creating hope that, by follow- ing a well-planned and well-executed strategy, the only outcome is success.” He also believes that, while hope is an integral part of a well-thought-out action plan, there are times when a manager needs to tailor the message of hope to individual personal situa- tions. “Hope is more than just opti- mism. You have to paint a story of suc- cess, provide the tools for success, and make sure the person you’re dealing with understands that you understand their situation and may have been in the same trenches they’re in,” he says. “We placed a new salesperson in a territory where two of our salespeople had gone over to the competition. It was a tough fight to regain some of that business, and he did well and emerged as a leader,” he explains. “We expanded his territory and gave him more responsibility. The result was he felt like the weight of the


CAROLINE WEBB: HOW TO HAVE A GOOD DAY


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