Sales Managers: Who Is Helping to Keep Track of Your Priority?
The Boss: “You must be in this staff meeting from 1:00 to 4:00. It’s the number one priority.”
The CFO: “You need to get your budget submitted by the end of day. It’s the number one priority.”
The Spouse: “You need to pick up Mason at school and take him to his soccer practice. It’s your number one priority.”
You: “I need to coach the sales team across town. They haven’t had a sale in three weeks. That must be my number one priority.”
Of course, only one of those statements is true. Try as we might to kid ourselves, there is but a single “number one priority.”
But how do you know which it is? Who is giving you unbiased guidance on how to prioritize, and then on how to execute?
The Boss has an agenda; she doesn’t stop to think about the best use of you time. The CFO has a different agenda; it’s all about the spreadsheet. The Spouse knows that his/her own work commitment is too important to miss. And you, well, you just want everyone to stop yelling.
I am extremely grateful that I have people in my life who nudge me in the right direction. More than nudge me, they flat out look me in the eye and tell me, “You’re doing it wrong.”
I need that. I am, quite frankly, a lousy judge of my own efforts. I respond far too often to the urgent while I neglect the important.
In fact, I encourage those around me to hold me accountable. My Shore Consulting employees, my pastor, my wife, and yes – my coaches.
They each have a different perspective, but they all have my back. They are all looking out for me.
But the greatest accountability comes from the peers that have the best sense of what I do. Whether it is the three mastermind groups I take part in, or the four conferences I attend each year, I am constantly on the lookout for people who will help me to grow.
And I’m a far better person for it.
Who does that for you? Who can you trust to keep you focused? Who serves that role in your life to make sure, as Stephen Covey once said, that the main thing remains the main thing?
If you’re a sales leader in the new home industry, I have an application for you at this point. Come to our annual Sales Leadership Summit in San Diego this coming July. Join with 300 sales leaders who are all focused on the same thing: to solidify their priorities and figure out how to execute at an entirely new level of excellence. Learn, network, ask, share, and get the career refreshment that you know you need.
Come to the Jeff Shore Sales Leadership Summit and experience what thousands of managers have been a part of. Come with the expectation that your world will be changed.
