8 Reflections From My 1st Year In Sales Management

Originally posted on LinkedIn Jan 7, 2018:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-reflections-from-my-1st-year-sales-management-rich-stone What better time to reflect on 2017 than while in-flight from San Francisco to frigid Boston for our 2018 Sales Kickoff on this fine Sunday. As I wrote some reflections back in March after my 1st quarter in sales management, I thought it would be beneficial to do the same with a full year under my belt. Here is what I learned in 2017:

1. Culture is the most important thing when building and maintaining a winning team. Attitude, approach and winning are all contagious. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t resist a good sports analogy:

• Our locker room is upbeat.  

• We get off the bus with a swagger.

• We fly around with our heads on a swivel.  

• We win.

2. My team inspires me to be better.

• I am very lucky these days because I have no shortage of things that inspire me to be my best. Outside of my family, my team is my greatest source of motivation.

• It is impossible to not get after it every single day when you see each and every one of your team members doing the same.

3. Hard choices. Easy life.

• No one ever got anywhere in this world by waiting for it to come to them. You have to go get it.

• It is hard to get out of bed early. It is difficult to overcome your fears of rejection. It is tiring to constantly strive to better yourself in all of the phases of your life.

• If you work tenaciously and do the little things that are difficult day in and day out, you will win.

4. Never quit. Be relentless.

• As I dove into during an earlier post “Strength Doesn’t Come From Winning,” adversity and hardships are what make us strong.

• Embrace pain and failure in sales and in your life.

• If you can endure loss and remain relentlessly positive you will become durable and rugged which will help increase your chances of winning the next one.

5. Thoughts become things. Your mindset can become your reality.

• Visualization is a powerful thing.

• With a New Year comes new goals and resolutions. The only way to actually make an impact and improve yourself is to visualize hitting your goals.

• If you envision what you want and structure your day to achieve the tasks that will get you one step closer to your goals, that is how you actually make an impact.

6. Having a game plan and structuring your day with tasks is the essential foundation to hitting the goals you’ve set.

• In order to accomplish goals you must have an actionable list of attainable tasks on a daily basis that you can achieve.

• If your goal is to make $1,000,000, you will need to accomplish several actionable tasks over several days, weeks, months and (likely) years in order to realize that goal.

• Making 10 prospecting phone calls won’t make you a million dollars, but it could open the door that gets you one step closer to that goal.

• Without a foundation your house will fall. If you maintain your foundation consistently it will be able to support the mansion this behavior can yield for you.

7. Be radically open minded.

• I’m currently reading Ray Dalio’s "Principles" and in it he illustrates how essential it is to remove ego and be open to conflicting opinions in seek of the truth.

• Good decisions aren't necessarily the ones that stroke your ego. A good decision is what's best for you and your company. To make good decisions, argues Dalio, a person must have the ability to explore different points of view and different possibilities, regardless of whether it hurts your ego.

• This mindset is imperative if you seek the best outcome and want to win. This goes for your relationship with your boss, your peers and your team. I’ve said it many times before and I will say it many times again, iron sharpens iron.

8. Above all else, it is imperative that you care about your team.

• We recently read Simon Sinek’s “Leaders Eat Last” for our team book club and here are the most powerful takeaways that I do my best to subscribe to:

• It is a leader’s job to take responsibility for the success of each member of his/her crew. It is the leader’s job to ensure that they are well trained and feel confident to perform their duties. To give them responsibility and hold them accountable to advance the mission.

• What makes a good leader is that they eschew the spotlight in favor of spending time and energy to do what they need to do to support and protect their people.

• Every single employee is someone’s son or someone’s daughter. Parents work to offer their children a good life and a good education and to teach them the lessons that will help them grow up to be happy, confident and able to use all the talents they were blessed with. Those parents then hand their children over to a company with the hope the leaders of that company will exercise the same love and care as they have. This is what it means to be a leader. This is what it means to build a strong company.

What did you learn in 2017 that will set you up for success in 2018?  Comment below or hit me up on LinkedIn or @rstone57.

The New Year is upon us, take what you’ve learned and get after it. Onward.