Well, I kept my word and posted every day since coming back to the blog. How fitting that my last post in the series of building a plan would come on the last day of 2007. Even more fitting that it is about making change. At a time when everyone is resolving to make improvements or adjustments in their life, I warn you against making them rashly. When you build a plan for the sales arm of your organization, or for your small corner of it, APPLY IT BEFORE ABANDONING OR ADDING TO IT! A bad boss, but a great reiterator of insight once told me something that stuck, “You have to run the play the way it was written, and when it fails, run it again. If it fails again, run it again. Each time you can study what happened and analyze why. Was it the players, the timing, the execution? If it was none of these things, then you examine the play.”

It is important that you believe in your talents. If you have what it takes to build a plan, and have the buy in of your partners, peers, and superiors, then you should run the thing before making adjustments. If you do not know the why behind a failing or non performing plan, then you cannot fix it by making abrupt changes.

To compound things, most Sales reps abhor change. Even when they move to a new company the systems, rules of processing orders, e-mail tools, all cause some frustration. When you enlist them in your plan for successful selling you have to let them first get their legs under them, then help them address their challenges, then watch them run. If you have the right people, and treat them properly, your plan should shine.

Finally, no matter how great a new idea is, it can wait. Weigh the risk of initiating something new over the fallout of what was left behind. You can always make a change later; you can never undo one you have made without losing the respect of some if not all of your team. You have worked too hard to get to this point to become your own greatest challenge.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND GOOD LUCK IN 2008!

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Building a sales plan. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.