Early into one of my sales positions, my boss informed me that the operations manager was upset with me. I was too task-oriented and focused in my dealing with the company’s internal personnel who made things happen in the business. I’d come into the office, drop projects and requests on everyone’s desk, and head out again.

My task-oriented behavior was upsetting people. As a result, they were balking at cooperating with me. My projects were being left on the bottom of the pile, and other salespeople were getting more cooperation.

I had better change my attitude, he told me, or I’d find it very difficult to succeed in this organization.

My lack of good relationships with the people who could make things happen for me was hurting my performance. ...

Get 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.