November 6, 2015

Re: Brent HodgesWestern Division Sales ManagerEveryCarListed.com

Brent is hands down the best Sales Manager I have ever worked for, in my more than twenty years as an Outside Sales Consultant, and I've worked under more than a dozen different men and women. I worked under Brent for two years, from June 2013 to October 2015. Brent was the Western Division Sales Manager for EveryCarListed.com, and my Territory was Washington and Oregon.

Brent worked diligently to help every one of his Salespeople successfully accomplish all the Goals he set out for us. He provided consistent, motivational feedback, support, and encouragement to keep us on track,and our morale high. The Salespeople on Brent's Team all felt he was the key to our success. We were willing to go the extra mile for him, because we knew he cared about us, and was always in our corner.

The results were that Brent built a Team that achieved #1 status in New Sales, Add-On Sales, and Customer Retention every month without fail, the entire time I worked for him. In fact, when Brent built his Western Division Team up to 9 Salespeople, we often accounted for 9 of the 12 top spots on the National Sales Scoreboard!

I believe the “secret” to Brent's Team's success was two-fold. First, in my opinion it was because Brent executed on these three key Sales Management maxims

“You must inspect what you expect”“To achieve results you must manage activity” “The Reps with the most Sales Appointments win.”

Brent did this by training, managing, and motivating us around a “10 Steps to Success Checklist” of best practices that he developed and espoused, which included Daily and Weekly Activity goals to keep us focused. Brent repeatedly emphasized to each of us that we owed it to ourselves to create for ourselves the most opportunities to make a Sale possible, and built Activity goals around that basic principle.

I believe the second “secret” to Brent's Team's success was that he developed the most powerful Sales Presentation I have ever used in my entire Sales career. It was brief, yet thorough and compelling, and incorporated Sales Closing “choice questions” that elicited key Closing criteria, while engaging the Customer in the Presentation. Brent trained and drilled and role-played with each of us this Sales Presentation so we all could deliver it smoothly – yet adapt it to the individual Prospect and his situation.

Thus, Brent is hands down the best Sales Manager I have ever worked for. I believe that no matter the situation, he will be able to motivate and manage any Sales Team to high levels of achievement, not only as a Team, but for each individual Sales Person too. I learned a tremendous amount from Brent, that I will take with me and use as a Sales Consultant in the future. And, should I choose to be a Sales Manager again in the future, I will attempt to emulate my personal best Sales Manager - Brent Hodges.

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James McDougall4 2 5 . 4 4 5 . 2 3 2 3 • j m c d o o g i e @ e a r t h l i n k . n e t

15325 SE 155th PL, #U-7Renton, WA 98058