As a sales professional, you must be proactive in the way you manage change.
If you manage change as an event-driven activity or a reactive process, then it’s typically going to start long after the need to do so arises. It’s got to be a forward-looking activity, driven by your unique experience of your market.
For instance, several years ago I weighed 260 pounds, smoked cigarettes, and was heading, probably, towards my first cardiac arrest.
Fast forward 36 months and I’m flying back from Nashville, where I ran my first marathon. Why? Because there was a change in my outlook after we had a child a couple of years ago.
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I’m going to state the most obvious thing in the world: Change is constant – there’s nothing you can do to stop it. 
Why even bother saying this? Because here’s the less-obvious follow-up: For the sales professional, change management, the things we do to proactively manage the changes going on in front of us, are critical to our success.
In our arena, the difference between being proactive and reactive is monumental.
And it’s ongoing, every day. So how are you changing your approach to the marketplace right now? What questions are you asking now to differentiate yourself? Have you changed your voicemail over the past three weeks? Every day? Once a week? Have you changed it more than once?
How often do you change:
• What you’re doing for your customers?
• The way that you’re listening to your customers?
• The way you prepare for your calls?
What have you done to change proactively, so that you can change your results?
Because you don’t make a change just for its own sake. You do it to provoke some different behavior. And if you’re making the right changes, those new behaviors are what drive the increase in your commission check.
So let’s consider the nature of change for just a moment. Think about your life. Have you changed your favorite meal in the past couple of years? Your favorite restaurant? Your favorite dish at that restaurant? Your favorite wine?
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