As an aside, he is the only boss who I have ever screamed a steady stream of profanity at that would make a construction worker blush. We did not speak for two days after that – but there were times where he truly drove me nuts.

 

Me? I was one of the top reps, I always beat my number and once clocked my forecast review at a little over 4 minutes. Know your business, be prepared, present it in a simple and clear way, don’t offer extra information and succinctly summarize bad news .. Never hide anything.

 

As a manager, he had a simple approach to management: call you once a day and cascade pressure downward. The problem is that for those at the top, that pressure always landed on our shoulders as we delivered his number quarter in, quarter out.What I did learn during this experience was the art of the forecast review. When I was first hired, I was hired with another man – Tom. Tom was from New York, he had a big swagger and could really talk a good game. I can remember through the interview process that they seriously did not consider hiring me because I was too young and when compared to a guy like ‘Tom’ – how could I compare?

 

In the end, Tom was one of those big talking under-performers who never hit his number while I was always top 3.

 

Every quarter we would get together as a team and review our pipelines. The weak performers (Like Tom) always did the same thing presenting their forecast, they would bury you in detail about deals, talk about business complexity and often go on for more than 30 minutes, invariably to explain their poor performance. The stars were up and down, comfortable in their ability to deliver.