All business public or private, strive for results. In the Covid pandemic, hospitals have fought hard to achieve results in treating a vast number of covid infected patients to survive and get well. Many businesses have been troubleshooting the Covid-situation, working hard to improve and find new ways to interact with their customers.

Did you know that there’s a theorem to create improvements anywhere? It’s called the theorem for improvement. Let’s stop for a while and get to know the word theorem. A theorem is a mathematical statement that has been proved or can be proved. And to prove something means that it is backed up by a logically untouchable argument that it is true.

So, how can you prove that something is true? Well in science, the most common way to prove that a statement is true, is to perform a logical experiment and study the result. And if the result proves your theory, the theory it is true. When you look up the word true in the dictionary, it’s defined as something that is in accordance with fact or reality. In other words, for something to be true, it must work in real life.

Before we look at the theorem for improvement, we must have a look at the concept of planning.

The product of good management is to realize plans in time and with the expected result. Thus, a manager is supposed to plan the job, staff, and business. A good manager is recognized by realizing those plans in time and with the expected results. Planning is the foundation for conscious actions toward a specific goal.

Now keep in mind that we plan and execute all the time. A small and simple plan with a short time frame, with conscious actions towards a simple goal, can take the form of a mental note and doesn’t have to be written down. The opposite of planned actions is (by definition), unplanned actions, which are the result of chance or surprise.

Planning for success over a sustained period requires a different approach. Even if you’ve never consulted a PT (Personal Trainer) at the gym, you’ve probably set a goal in your training and a schedule of activities to succeed in reaching a goal sometime in the future.

Most often, you don’t improve yourself or your business by chance, the good manager have a plan which is the overall smart idea that solves a specific “why”.

The theorem to improve your business implies – that to write a good plan:

1. You need to find the root cause of the situation that you are planning to solve.
2. And to solve that situation, the plan needs to address and solve the specific “why” we don’t have an optimum condition in that situation here and now.

The theorem for improvement reads:

1. Identify the Optimum Condition
2. Specify the Present Condition
3. Identify Deviations between 1 and 2 above
4. Identify “the situation” – The most profound deviation found above
5. Identify the “why” of the situation – The situation is a symptom of an actual underlying problem. That’s what you need to solve.

That’s it. The theorem for improvement gives you a quick tool that identify the most important issue to address to improve a given situation and get you closer towards your optimum condition. It works in life’s everyday situations, not just in business, and is a vital part in the preparations for building a good plan and realize your objectives.

If someone comes to you with a plan that doesn’t solve a real why, it’s probably just a waste of time. So, are you ready to look at the pain points of your business and start reliving them one-by-one?

In Troubleshooting Pain Points coaching, we browse through 7 major competence sections with a total of +50 specific sub-modules together matching them with your Pain Points. Based on your immediate needs, we bundle relevant content into a tailored offering, focusing on resolving the pain points with immediate focus and attention. Let’s get in touch.

All good sales management…

look the same. It creates results and has a certain appearance. To care about other individuals in the sales team, in the department, as well as the company’s overall results are the main traits of a good sales manager.

A big heart approach with high affinity and genuine commitment are the basis of all good sales management.  Let’s have a look at the definition of affinity and commitment. Affinity means – a natural liking for and understanding of someone or something. Commitment means – the interest, or the energy a person shows for a subject or a situation. The more interest and energy you put into something, the greater the commitment.

Energy and interest are contagious. All parents who have ever distracted a crying child know this, without the need to know the science behind it. Incidentally, that’s also a good definition of what is “true”. What works in life with expected result, is easy to understand and practice, must reasonably be true.

Just as parent has a naturally high affinity for their children, a sales manager who shows great interest and energy in his commitment to others in a group, can get them to produce significantly more than they previously thought was possible. A sales manager who with commitment and affinity gets others involved and makes them take big steps in their own personal development and ability, also becomes a much appreciated and well-liked sales manager.

With the “Be” resolved above, what does a manager do?
The foundation of all management looks the same. Regardless of if you are managing yourself or an entire company. It’s the ability to:

1. Observe and differentiate a situation
2. Assess the correct action and
3. Perform or have that action performed.

The sales manager’s ability to make correct observations and to differentiate between right and wrong, is without a doubt, clearly most important. Simply because all decisions and actions that follow, are a direct result of that ability.

What will we “Have” in the end as a product of good sales management?

A good sales manager will realize plans in time and with the expected results. In other words, it is in the nature of the job to:

1. Plan the work, staff, and activities.
2. Make these plans come true on time and with the planned result.

Successfully doing so gives a good sales manager the ability to predict the future, How cool is that?

With a plan to lead the business forward with, the manager and staff can act. The opposite – to react, is an unplanned action. Without a plan where activities are planned, performed, and completed successfully towards a goal set out by management with the ”big picture”, activities take place randomly in response to chance or surprises that arise from the team. In that case, who is leading who?

A plan crafted by a good sales manager lead to three things that all have a direct impact on each other:

1. REACH THE TEAM’S AND DEPARTMENTS RESULTS

2. ENGAGE STAFF

3. CONTINOUSLY IMPROVE THE TEAM AND DEPARTMENT

This is the sales manager’s ultimate task. The magic here is that if you increase one of the three outcomes, you increase all. Plan to succeed, lead with heart and commitment to grow your colleagues and improve the business unit you oversee.

In Sales Management… we coach sales managers to learn to see where they want to go and develop their ability to create a plan that takes them there.

The answer is that they do something different.

If all conditions are equal and two sales reps do the same things, the result over a substantial period, will be the same. There is no luck.

In fact, a person (or a business) with ”luck” has among other things, first and foremost, two variables working for them to create better results than others:

1. They do more. It’s quite simple and uncomplicated. Day by day, week by week. In sales (to borrow an expression from sports), they are more often in the offensive zone, talking to customers.
2. They have a higher ability and play the game differently than others.

To have the strength and stamina to more is quite straight forward to understand. But what does it mean to have a high ability? Let’s look at the definition of the word. Ability (according to the Cambridge Dictionary) means “the power or skill to do something” where the word “skill” according to the same dictionary means “an ability to do an activity or job well, especially because you have practiced it”.

A person with high ability no matter the area of expertise, do three parts better than someone with less ability in the same situation.

1. They observe and differentiate the situation
2. Assess the right course of action from that observation, and
3. Perform that action, or get it done to get the desired result.

To observe – means that in the given situation, carefully examine or look at something, to create awareness, or understanding. To differentiate – means to be able to distinguish (for example between right and wrong) the characteristics that set something apart from another within the situation.

That leads us to the fact that a person who here and now can observe and understand a given situation, take the correct actions, to achieve the desired result from that action, is competent. Which is the actual definition of “Competent”, in the named dictionary.

So, where does our ability come from, and more interesting, how do we increase it? Our ability depends on two parts in collaboration:

1. Our innate talent.
   You recognize high talent early in life in, sports, artistry, or other crafts or scientific disciplines such as mathematics to name one.
2. Our acquired level of knowledge.

We have the talent that we have, right? Our access to knowledge, on the other hand, is fortunately unlimited, which is why we can build our ability in any subject regardless of talent.

In sales, as in many other parts of life, knowledge beats talent every day of the week. A combination of high talent and high knowledge is obviously great, but talent only get you so far…

So, as knowledge beats talent, our sales coaching offer cover 7 major competence sections with a total of +50 specific competence modules. Based on your immediate needs, we bundle the relevant content into a tailored offering, focusing on delivering a Valuable End Product resolving these issues with immediate effect.

Have a great first quarter!