“If you get put on a plan, I think the first thing you need to do is take a really big deep breath and do some reflection. Give some thought to whether or not this company and this role is still the right fit for you.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 286
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. An interesting coincidence occurred over the course of the last week and I thought I’d talk about it a little bit, and also ask you for your stories if you’ve got one that’s relevant. It started after a friend who’s in a new leadership role reached out to ask if I could point him to any “I got put on a plan and turned it around” type of episodes, after putting one of his own guys on a plan but was really pulling for him and wanted to give him some inspiration. At the time I didn’t have an answer, but then a huge fan of Sales Success Stories that I wasn’t previously aware of reached out to share the story of his own rise to success over the course of the last 3 years of listening to the show, and it started with him being put on a plan at the end of the first year of that journey to now being absolutely at the top of his game just two years later. So I was able to put the two of them together, but all of this made me realize that being put on a plan is not exactly a rare occurrence, but one that’s rarely talked about. So I thought I’d talk about it a bit, and I can speak from some experience here because it’s happened to me twice over the course of my career. I wrote about one of those times in one of my own stories in the first Sales Success Stories book called: A Rapid Rise, an Epic Fall and Getting “Fired Up.”
If you get put on a plan I think the first thing you need to do is take a really big deep breath and do some reflection. Give some thought to whether or not this company and this role is still the right fit for you. Do you see a possible path to success, or is there a high degree of risk that you could grind as hard as you could and still find yourself being walked out the door at the end of it anyway? How’s your relationship with your manager and the rest of the sales leadership? Are they pulling for you and willing to help you turn the corner, or are they just trying to get rid of you?
These are all things I think you have to consider carefully before you decide on your course of action. Once you’ve done that evaluation it’s time to decide and I think that decision is binary. You have to go all-in on either the decision to leave and start looking for your next opportunity or you have to go all-in on turning it around. Trying to play the odds and hedging your bets on both paths I believe is nearly going to guarantee that you fail, again likely on both fronts.
Make your decision and go all out. If it’s me I’m then going to surround myself with the support system I need to support that particular choice. If it’s time to leave then I’m reaching out to my friends and mentors who can help me find the next best opportunity for me. If I’m all in then I’m going to let my leadership know my plan. I’m going to show them what I’m planning to do and ask them for their help in improving that plan and enroll them in helping me execute that plan. This is a good time to ask if somebody else on the team has recovered from being put on a plan. Spend time with them. Find some inspiration and get it done.
I’m sure I could go on, but we try to keep these tips pretty short and that should give you plenty to think about should you find yourself in that position.
This is one where I would LOVE to have more thoughts and insights from those who have been through the experience of being put on a plan and came out of it with a successful outcome. Whether that was turning around that specific opportunity or finding a new opportunity that was a much better fit where you’re having much better success.
Send me a note to [email protected] and we can work through the details of getting your tip recorded and featured.
As always, thank you so much for listening and come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!