7. Seventh Step: Continuous Improvement, Maintaining Success

Having a successful year is good. Having two in a row is even better. Beyond that, success becomes the stuff of legends—those who succeed year in and year out. How do you replicate success year after year?

Obviously, it takes a steely will to win and a stonewall refusal to lose. It takes people skills, market knowledge, and hundreds of other managerial factors that coalesce all at once. But there seems to be one thread that runs through many successful sales management careers: an effective process that guides the sales team every year in problem solving, objective setting, opportunity analysis, rep development, and many other important sales functions.

In the TQM world, it’s called ...

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