“Self Image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.”
-- Maxwell Maltz, Writer on Psycho-Cybernetics

Some years ago I interviewed more than thirty people to select pioneer sales managers for a new territory. Four made the initial cut; two more were quickly added. All were ambitious, had little or no sales management experience, and were under thirty years of age. I’m proud to say that, together, we built a multi-million-dollar-a-year business. We all changed during this growth. The change was constant, as the organization grew from six sales people to more than a thousand. We kept changing the sales contest rules and prospecting approaches. We would try something, and, more often than not, it failed. So we tried something else. However, each time the change was effective, we kept that policy, prospecting technique, hiring ad, or contest rule for a long time. The wonderful thing about change is that if it fails, you can drop it quickly. If it succeeds, you continue it for a long time. One first-rate success wipes out the frustration of ten small failures.

Most of my sales executive life, I have heard foot steps behind me as I imagined walking past a prospecting graveyard. No matter how good things were, I never felt it would last … unless I came up with something new to stir the troops. Perhaps, it was this fear that turbo-charged the change-juices to keep me tinkering with new recruiting ads, new sales contest formats, or new commission bonuses. Whatever. I was always looking for that new edge, experimenting, trying something new ... hoping those footsteps would not catch up to me.

The old adage of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” just does not apply in the modern business world. You can always do better. The road to becoming a sales management success means you are never satisfied. Great managers are always looking for new and better ways to exceed sales targets. Passionate leadership is always helping their key people to reach for new sales objectives with new techniques. For instance, there is almost always a need to change how sales reps allocate their time. Sales management is one endless mission of helping sales people move from here to a better there.

Think for a moment of how much the job of both a sales person and a sales manager revolves around changing things for the better. The first starring role of a sales person is to change a prospect’s interest in the product into a buying decision. Great closers are compelling advocates of change by their very natures. That’s how they get orders.

The sales manager’s job of advocating change has many facets. In the recruiting interview, it is the often the need to successfully change the applicant’s sometime negative image of the sales person to a more positive perspective. The sales manager’s key function in training new people is changing the sales trainee’s perception of how the sales process REALLY works. Sales trainees arrive fresh and a little fearful. They wonder, “Can I do the job? They know they need training, while at the same time clinging to some preconceived notion of what selling is all about.

As sales managers have train sales recruits to sell competently, good sales management is also trying to change and improve the trainee’s self-image and self-confidence. One of the proudest moments in a sales manager’s life is watching a personality change in a sales person. A new sales trainee starts slowly, not sure of his or her ability. Then, step by step, the new sales person blossoms. As I think back on my early days as a field manager of college students in the summers of the early 1960s, I am reminded of “Jack”, who graduated a year behind me in high school. He wore white socks, his hair was unkempt, his trousers were creaseless, and he was very, very nervous. By the end of the summer selling season, his white socks were gone, his hair was cut professionally, and his new trousers had a snappy crease. Jack walked with a bit of swagger. It had only been one year before that when I had gone through a similar metamorphous. I hope Bob Shiffler, my first sales manager, took the same pride in my makeover as I did in helping Bob realize his potential.

However, even successful change can be a burden. Once, in a meeting, I remember reviewing proposed changes to our customer service policy. The changes were major. At the close of the meeting, one of the participants asked if this policy was final. He asked, “When will the change stop?” I probably ruined his day when I replied, “never.”

Change in crisis is easier, because when a business is threatened, everyone is more willing to try something new. It has been easiest to champion good training techniques, foster changes in sales contests, promotion policies when things are tough. Prospecting methods is often one of the great change opportunities. Sales reps need to keep trying new methods to find more customers.

The sales manager needs to be there in the forefront of change when the company has a new policy. The best sales managers become enthusiasts of the change, even as some sales people will resist change.

The great sales managers are almost always reading some book, magazine article, participating in some tele-seminar, or listening to a tape on leadership or management. They seek change opportunities. It is like exercise. We do not have to go to the gym two hours a day to stay fit. However, we do need to walk at least for twenty to thirty minutes, three times a week to stay healthy.

The market keeps changing. The sales recruits keep changing. Methods to find customer keep changing. So it only makes sense the great sales manager keep changing and keep leading the change process in their sales force.

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