Transforming Sales Management

When transitions are challenging, the trick is to find simplicity on the other side of the complexity. Transforming Sales Management offers useful guidance for navigating change but does so in the form of six easy-to-remember, yet potentially penetrating, questions that can be used to forge a path forward.

This book, the model and the tools that underlie it should be well-thumbed, bookmarked and used by sales managers who need to help their teams get over their fears, their limiting beliefs and tendencies to procrastinate so they can increase sales. It is also my firm belief that the book should be in the knapsack of every sales leader, manager, coach and trainer.

Change is scary! People tend to be resistant to change (whether positive or negative), which is why successful organizational transformations are so notoriously difficult to achieve. Grant Van Ulbrich's refreshing new book factors in individual choice and provides guidance for people in business and beyond on how to manage their own change situation. Taking his original research (first published in the International Journal of Sales Transformation), Dr. Van Ulrich outlines his SCARED SO WHAT personal change model. The book can help salespeople globally navigate their own personal change journey (at work or even in their personal lives). Importantly, the book explores real-world examples and applications of the model from within the hospitality industry, most notably during a period of unprecedented societal and business transformation triggered by the global Covid-19 pandemic. Accessible and easy to read, this book offers a ground-breaking but practical guide to understanding the role of individuals' emotions in executing business change.

As a scholar practitioner and learning leader in organizations, Grant's pragmatic review of popular change models reminded me of 'the basics,' but his work provided a fresh perspective about the human emotions that too often go overlooked when preparing for and leading through change events - and not just for sales organizations, ALL ORGANIZATIONS! I reviewed each component of SCARED SO WHAT and re-thought certain elements of the change happening around me and put forth my own personal change strategy plan in a straightforward way using Grant's model.

Grant has written a modern, must-read book about the ongoing challenges of change and transformation, not just for millennials, but for all of us facing the increasing pace of the VUCA world in which we all live. What makes his book so notable is that it doesn't just explain a theory, but it also considers practice and tools.