Much has changed in the world of sales, but the importance of managing sales prospects remains high. An active interaction between the sales manager and his outside sales reps (OSR) should occur monthly. OSRs must be able to discuss specific details, including expected close dates, regarding their Top 10 prospective accounts.
These prospective accounts should be listed in a funnel, as depicted in this spreadsheet format.
Account Name
Strategy: Goal, Next Step, Date
Estimated Sales
Estimated Margin
Strategy
In managing sales, I recommend using the strategy described below.
Goal: Identify the specific product or service goal that will cause your prospect to buy from you. Successful sales professionals are consultative partners. With today’s digital tools, your CRM, aided by AI, can help you understand what the prospect expects/needs before agreeing to buy.
For example, AI finds that a prospect has a recorded safety violation. You can offer to help remedy that with your products. In another instance, AI reveals a manufacturing company in your territory is expanding and will need the newest innovative production equipment your company sells.
Next Step: Digital tools can assist the OSR in identifying prospect behavior, engagement patterns, and buying signals. AI can track email opens, website visits, content downloads, and social media interactions to gauge and tailor your next step. Your next step is to be sure the decision maker will buy your solution to their problem.
Date: Each next step must be completed by the date presented to the sales manager. Your monthly reviews with the OSRs are strategic for assisting them in developing and maintaining a solid game plan.
Estimated Sales and Margin: Use predictive AI analytics to estimate customer and prospect sales and margin reliably. The total of your active funnel sales and margin must be at least 4 times the dollars you need to meet your new account growth for the year.
What is required for success
Managing sales prospects is required for success. Monthly personal sales management reviews allow the professional salesperson to know what is needed to achieve this. Lastly, the key to today’s sales prospect management lies in combining technology with genuine relationship building, ensuring prospects feel and understand valued throughout their buying journey.
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing time management, and AI planners are leading this transformation. Moreover, these intelligent systems go beyond traditional scheduling methods by learning your patterns, predicting your needs, and optimizing your time for maximum productivity.
Revolutionizing Time Management with AI Calendars
Smart Scheduling and Optimization: How much time do you lose trying to schedule meetings? AI calendar assistants reduce scheduling headaches by automatically optimizing meeting times with customers, suppliers, and team members—saving hours every week.
Enhanced Goal Achievement: Do you struggle to achieve the goals you set? AI can break down large projects into smaller, actionable steps and schedule them directly into your calendar. While making progress easier and more consistent.
Reduced Stress and Anxiety: Staying organized shouldn’t feel overwhelming. By planning your work and working your plan, AI-powered calendars create structure, reduce last-minute chaos, and give you peace of mind.
Smarter Sales Planning: In today’s fast-moving digital world, sales reps face constant pressure to manage activities and appointments. As well as, traditional digital calendars improved efficiency by replacing paper systems, but AI calendars go even further. They confirm appointments, track sales history, plan schedules, and adapt in real time, making sales planning faster, smarter, and more effective than ever before.
AI Calendar Tools for Smarter Scheduling and Productivity
Stay on Track: Are your projects running behind schedule? AI scheduling tools can automatically find the best times, block them into your calendar, and even add buffer time for unexpected delays.
Predictive Planning: Struggling to prioritize a busy schedule? Additionally, AI can color-code appointments by category: family, customers, prospects, suppliers, personal, or company—so you instantly see what matters most.
Personalized Insights: Want a personal assistant who understands your work style? AI learns your habits and preferences, adjusting your calendar for the best times to handle tasks, meetings, breaks, and downtime, helping you maintain work-life balance.
Seamless Integration: Need to keep up with multiple platforms? An AI calendar integrates with your social media, email, webcasts, podcasts, and messaging tools, ensuring you never miss what’s most important.
Maximizing AI calendar benefits
Lastly, your AI calendar planner evolves with you, becoming more sophisticated as it learns your patterns. To get the most from it, feed your calendar accurate data about your preferences, goals, and constraints. Also, the more information you provide, the better it becomes at anticipating your needs and making intelligent suggestions. This partnership transforms scheduling from a reactive chore into a proactive tool for success.
Managing your Reps — Setting Expectations and Providing Reviews
This is the first in a series of articles I am writing on AI’s impact on managing the next generation of outside sales reps (OSR). I will be focusing on managing by using effective monthly one-on-one reviews. I believe the best (OSR) or inside sales rep (ISR) is only as effective as the expectations set by their company leaders. This makes management’s reviews of reps important to everyone’s success.
Call reporting
With the rapidly increasing efficacy of AI, collecting accurate data is paramount. For maximum customer and prospective account growth, call reporting is becoming increasingly relevant. Whether it is closing new business, measuring the top 4 to 6 key indicators on a dashboard, or results in monthly sales, margin, and new account margins, reps must input proper data in their client call reports for AI to be effective.
Key Elements
What are the key elements in an effective AI call report?
Why — As noted above, AI is only as effective as the data collected. The timely reporting of activity in a customer or prospective account sets AI in motion. It can determine the most effective direction for the next call. Today’s clients will research the product information necessary to solve their need before engaging with a rep. If today’s OSR isn’t bringing new consultative solutions to grow the customer’s sales and profit, that customer won’t want or need to see them.
When — It is no longer appropriate to enter a call report at the end of a day. That time lapse is too long and results in reps missing a significant detail in their reports. Information should be voiced to the agentic AI as soon as the OSR gets back into their car. Your agentic AI is best defined as your agent who autonomously achieves specific goals with minimal human supervision. What a great new friend!
What — The content in the report must include the purpose of the call, the results, suggested next steps, requested quotes, and date and time for the next call. Within minutes, the agent will tell the OSR’s suggested content for an email back to the customer. The email will include contact information and an appropriate pricing and delivery quote. AI will also generate a confirmation request for the next appointment.
With this information, the agent will update the OSR the day before the next appointment with any new information it has collected on the customer. Any possible change in the call purpose will be noted. AI will also send a reminder to the customer and to the OSR on any quote activity.
The call report
A timely call report is the central basis for the sales manager’s monthly OSR reviews. Every sales rep appreciates a good review of how well they are meeting company expectations and what they need to accomplish to be more effective.
Do you know who your buyers are and what they expect? According to LinkedIn’s 2025 B2B Buyers Report, Millennials now make up 73% of all B2B buyers and 44% of final purchasing decision-makers. Mark Broham reports in Digital Commerce 360: “The B2B commerce landscape is undergoing a generational transformation; Millennials – those born between 1981 and 1996 – have firmly taken control of corporate buying decisions, driving a new era defined by digital expectation, streamlining purchasing, and marketplace dominance.”
Four principles
Millennials were raised on the Amazon experience — fast and easy purchasing. They expect the same type of service from their suppliers. Here are four important principles guiding buyer expectations today.
A personalized experience – A recent study shows that 73% of buyers expect to receive a personalized Amazon B2C experience in their B2B transactions. Many companies now utilize AI technology to track customers’ purchasing habits and online searches, enabling them to send targeted ads based on demand.
Buyer enablement – Commercial success now hinges on the ease, speed, and convenience of sales. Distributors must create a simplified pathway to their technical expertise. The buyer must be able to access your added value differentiator with the ease of a simple transaction. If he/she can purchase what sets you apart conveniently, they will favor you.
A Self-Guided Digital Channel – Gen Y and Gen Z (TikTok generation) are known for their self-reliance and research habits. Many customers prefer to find detailed product information, compare options, and make purchases independently, without needing to contact a sales representative. They also use AI tools in their personal lives and expect similar innovations to be available in the B2B purchasing process.
A partnering relationship – AI will continue to advance the customer-supplier relationship by making it easier to identify customer needs. Its presence changes the responsibilities of the outside sales rep (OSR). The relationship of the OSR to the client is now one of consultative collaboration. Today’s reps need to work with clients to increase their profitability. Interactions should enhance work efficiency by helping the customer get the right things done. The relationship must move past a focus on products and services to client success. As the late Zig Ziglar expressed so well, “You can get anything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.”
Meet buyers’ expectations
It is an exciting time to be meeting your customers’ expectations. Lastly, spend time engaging the next generation of buyers by providing a personalized buying experience, easy access to your products, a self-guided digital channel, and sales that focus on client success.
I recently read “Another Way” by Dave Whorton. In this book, Whorton gives practical advice and real-world examples of companies going Evergreen. Several of the tenets of business growth he describes resonated with me and my experience growing a company in the distribution business.
Key factors
Whorton reports: “The key factors that determine success were/are service, mission, teamwork, and fun.” During my career at a distributorship, I often couldn’t believe I was actually paid to do it. I really enjoyed the job. Of course, there were times of stress and frustration. It was not rewarding to lose a key account or feel we had been inattentive to a customer’s needs. We were able to overcome setbacks like these, however, because we focused on service, mission, and teamwork,
Paced growth
Our company followed what Whorton calls Paced Growth — the discipline to focus on long-term strategy, and balanced short- and long-term performance. In this way,we grew steadily and consistently from year to year. I estimate that our compounded growth rate over the years I was with this distributorship was at 8% per year. Like many of the Evergreen companies Whorton reviews in his book, we believed that if we took care of our customers and employees first, the profits would follow.
Four tenets
Here are four tenets that our company shared with Evergreen companies.
Make sure customers have a good experience. When we added new accounts, we committed to becoming “partners for life.” We did this by introducing customers to our vendors, holding open houses and barbeques at their facilities, and other joint venture engagements.
Bring in the best people and give them the right tools to become your future leaders. This means providing employees with the latest digital technologies. According to a report by Tecmony, “58% of companies in the B2B sector actively use chatbots.” The rising generation of employees is already using AI agents. According to a Google survey, 93% of Gen Z respondents said they were using two or more AI tools per week. If your C-Suite is not training your employees with digital technology, your employees will more than likely find a company that will.
Provide continual growth. This keeps everyone interested and engaged in the company. The best companies share their profit with their employees. In our distributorship, we returned 10% of the net profit to employees. We also had a 15% ESOP. Continual growth will come naturally if your employees feel they are shared owners.
Maintain a reasonable bottom linewhile staying private. Make sure your company has the cash to grow without relying on outside interests. Employees who see consistent improvements will work harder to grow the business.
Follow these tenets
Make sure your customers have a good experience, and your employees are the best and the brightest. Provide continual growth and maintain a reasonable bottom line while staying private. Following these four tenets brings growth and employee satisfaction. When employees can say, “I can’t believe they pay me to do this”, success follows!
A brilliant young business owner in our distribution vertical always has great book recommendations for me. I just read his most recent suggestion; “Another Way” by Dave Whorton. The book describes the leadership characteristics of what Whorton calls privately held Evergreen companies. These are businesses that build value for the long haul by creating unity. They do not follow the Venture Capitalist philosophy of getting-big-fast or growing at-all-costs to sell or go public.
Evergreen principles
Here are just a few of the principles for creating unity within an Evergreen company.
Purpose – Whorton relates how Bill Hewlett and David Packard made a deep impression on him when he was sixteen and working in their Santa Rosa factory. “Hewlett and Packard were all about respecting the individual, treating people fairly, and encouraging them to explore their creative pursuits.” The best companies have caring leadership, not strategy, as their core purpose. They speak with one voice and don’t send mix messages.
Another powerful example of purpose in action is the success of In-N-Out, founded by Harry and Esther Snyder in 1948. They built the company on a clear, uncompromising mission: “Do one thing and do it exceptionally well.” Their focus was simple—serve the freshest, highest-quality hamburgers, fries, and shakes quickly, in a sparkling clean environment. Customers could see this commitment firsthand in the open kitchen, where a team of happy, well-rewarded associates worked with pride and enthusiasm.
Relationship – In Evergreen companies, internal relationships rest on simple truths. They address conflicts immediately, resolve issues before they grow, and operate with complete transparency. As my friend Abe Wagner says, “Say it straight or you show it crooked.”
Whorton explains that one principle that separates Evergreen companies from others is a People First management program. At a distributorship I was part of for 34 years, we reviewed sales, expenses, and gross and net profit with our employees quarterly. Moreover, since the employees received 10% of the annual net profit with payments distributed each quarter, this was an important way to establish good relationships.
Self-finance – Evergreen companies operate at a self-financeable growth (SFG) rate, a concept that every entrepreneur should know. Since many Evergreen companies were initially built by founders who didn’t feel they would qualify for loans at the local bank, SFG is a familiar concept in this arena. The SFG philosophy holds that “If you don’t have the cash to buy it, wait until you do”. With slow but steady SFG growth, many Evergreen companies have realized several hundred thousand dollars in annual revenues.
Create unity
In conclusion, these are principles important to independent distributors. I will share more in future articles. In the meantime, keep your business Evergreen by creating unity in your business, following your purpose, building solid relationships, and pursuing self-financeable growth rates. Fantastic results will follow.
Early in my career, I worked for an international distribution company with a steep corporate ladder to climb. As a sales manager, I oversaw a quarter of the country — from Colorado to Florida. This required a lot of travel. I met weekly with 8 different reps at various airports. When the corporation reorganized, I was offered a Vice President’s position. I aspired to eventually run a major enterprise. Would accepting the VP position help me meet that goal? Would that be a good decision for a balanced life?
First things first
The VP offer represented a big step up the corporate ladder. I was 35 and happily married with three young children. This was a big life decision. As suggested by Steven Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, I looked at my “first things first” priority list — God, family, and then career. I worried that this new position would take me even farther away from family life.
Finding a balance
An independent distributor heard of my concerns. He was in the process of taking over the family business from his father. He saw me as a good candidate to help him grow that business. This meant I would be home more often, whichrepresented a good life balance for me. I accepted.
Three guiding principles
Life-changing career decisions are challenging. Here are some guiding principles to consider when you find yourself at a crossroads.
Personal Integrity – Does this position align with my understanding of personal integrity? People rise and fall based on this important quality. The best way to assess your integrity is to ask yourself: Who am I when no one is watching? Strive to be beyond reproach, temperate (sober-minded and clear-headed), and self-controlled.
Family Life – The foundation of family is honoring and supporting your spouse’s priorities. Will this new position allow me to build on that foundation? In our 53 years of marriage, a road of compromises has assured a straight pathway for our family and a clear direction for our children.
Relational Health — Will this new position enable me to treat others the way I would like to be treated? As the late Zig Ziglar reminded us, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Show others hospitality, keep your ego in check, and demonstrate humility.
A work in progress
I have used these guiding principles during my 50-year-plus career. These principles are never fully achieved. To own them requires developing habits around them. Lastly, balancing life decisions should always be considered a work in progress. Get tips and tricks like the above in The Art of Sales books. Or subscribe to the FREE monthly articles here.
Like so many areas of business, the art of strategic planning has been greatly altered by the introduction of new technology. Software applications and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have greatly improved our ability to project and make a strategic plan.
Three questions
I suggest you ask these three questions when making your strategic plan.
How are changes in technology affecting your operations? When developing a strategic plan, be sure to consider how the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting your operations. A recent report from the Harvard Department of Education looked at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by generations. The report highlights that younger employees are using AI generative agents at work, with 65% of users being Millennials or Generation Z. In contrast, 68% of non-users are from Generation X or the Baby Boomer generation. Half of the surveyed teens also reported using generative AI.
What differentiates your company? Personalization is your greatest asset. Make this a critical part of your strategic plan. Focus on your company’s unique expertise and skills. These allow you to offer value-added services and local visibility. Look at ways to improve bundling, assembling, repairing, and customer training. Utilize advanced technologies to enhance your personalized differentiators. Regulatory pressures and cost challenges will continue to slow the pace of competing online e-commerce verticals, as well as other evolving companies and AI-native startups. Leverage personalization to increase your market share.
What matters most to your customers? What continues to set the distributor apart from Amazon, Granger, Home Depot, and other evolving companies? It is clear that customers still value trust, adaptability, and strong local relationships.In your planning, consider how you can focus on person-to-person availability in new ways that will generate greater profits for both parties. This includes using AI technology. AI can lower costs in areas like order automation, product information enhancement, marketing, and returns processing. It also improves customer personalization by providing timely insights into customer behavior changes. Be sure to make targeted investments in digital technology, particularly AI applications.
Make a plan
In conclusion, consider developing a plan that takes into account how technology, such as AI, is affecting your business while also prioritizing the needs of your customers.Success will follow!
When I retired from a very successful distribution company in 2018, we were creating our strategic plan using the most current and sophisticated methods available. Sales forecasting is achieved by analyzing previous sales cycles and following leading economic indicators.We also reviewed other companies’ and suppliers’ forecasts in our distribution vertical. Using that information, we projected our top customer sales.
We created our five-year strategic plan using a combination of SWOT analysis, future asset development, and market share projections. We also evaluated the potential impact of adding new locations and products. Given the tools available at that time, these methods yielded the best planning results. Today, new technologies enable us to sharpen that forecast.
Unforeseen events
The above type of strategic planning could not foresee the effects of a global pandemic, 2023’s inflation, supply chain immobilization, generative AI, international wars, and tariff corrections. Also, each of those forces impacted how distributors operate, compete, and, most importantly, plan for the future. Moreover, to effectively compete in today’s technologically fueled market, new methods need to be added to traditional strategic forecasting techniques.
It is especially important to keep an eye on Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. AI technology both reduces the cost of doing business and improves customer personalization. Lastly, these initiatives are critical to a good strategic plan.
Exciting times
We live in an exciting time for distribution. How do you plan for the future? You sharpen your forecasting skills by including the use of new technology and improving customer personalization in your strategic planning.
As a consultant, I am often asked to interview potential new executive employees for my clients. In my sales management career, I hired many outside sales representatives. When interviewing, I relied heavily on intuition and my success rate was above average — in the 70% range. However, I recently read Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which challenged me to rethink the evaluation process. In a chapter, “Intuitions versus Formulas,” one of Kahneman’s key axioms is, “Whenever we can replace human judgment by a formula, we should at least consider it.” While intuition served me well in interviewing, I see now that scoring behavioral characteristics can yield a more accurate assessment.
The formula
When developing a formula for your hiring process, consider these steps:
Select traits – Create a way to measure up to six specific traits, such as passion, problem solving, organizational skills, work ethic, listening skills, and integrity.
Make a list of questions for each trait.
What are you passionate about? The candidate needs to be able to provide an example.
What was your toughest career problem? The candidate should be able to provide an example and a solution.
How do you prepare for a week’s work? The candidate should be able to demonstrate organizational skills.
How many hours do you work per week? The candidate needs to tell you that he is willing to work more than 40 hours per week and that he will work however long it takes to finish a project, solve a problem, etc.
If someone comes to you with apersonal issue, what do you do? The candidate should respond, “Listen” and “Give them help or refer them to someone who can.”
What do you value in a company’s culture? The candidate needs to include integrity, truth, etc.
Score each trait – Rate the traits on a 1-5 scale, from “very weak” to “very strong.” Think through each question and what significant qualities would make a difference on your scoring. Avoid the “halo effect” — the tendency for an impression created from the answer of one trait to influence your opinion in another area. Score the answer given for each trait before moving to the next.
Total final scores – Firmly resolve that you will hire the candidate whose final score is the highest, even if there is a candidate whom you like better. You are much more likely to find the best candidate using this process than only trusting your intuitive judgment.
Raise your hiring success rate
Kahneman suggests, “Let’s decide in advance to give credence to the scores on the data from the candidate’s past performance. Otherwise, we will give too much weight to our impression from the interview.” To raise your hiring success rate, use a formula. Choose the candidate whose final score is the highest and let intuitions take a back seat.
