Habits and Annoying Behaviour

• In sales teams, certain repetitive behaviours can drive you crazy. We use specific structures to talk about annoying habits, both past and present.
• Structure
• Function
• Example
• will + verb
• Annoying habit in the present
• He will interrupt me during every client pitch in Austin.
• would + verb
• Annoying habit in the past
• Whenever we visited Chicago, she would steal my best leads.
• be always + -ing
• Continuous irritation in the present
• Mark is always undercutting colleagues in Boston.
• keep (on) + -ing
• Repeated persistent action
• She keeps on hoarding enterprise accounts in New York.
• Remember
• Use 'will' for present annoying habits, especially when someone refuses to change.
• Use 'would' for past repeated habits that annoyed you.
• Use 'be always + -ing' to emphasize how often an irritating thing happens now.
• Use 'keep (on) + -ing' to show persistence in a bad habit.
• Examples
• My business partner will complain about territory carve-outs in Dallas.
• When we worked in Seattle, Dan would always blame me for lost deals.
• Sarah is always starting turf wars in our Atlanta office.
• Tom keeps on clashing with senior management in London.
• Common mistakes
• He always interrupts my calls.
• He is always interrupting my calls.
• She kept to undermine our team in Denver.
• She kept on undermining our team in Denver.

Complete the sentences

• Whenever we had a quarterly review in Chicago, Ryan (would) ____ complain about account assignments.
• Why (be always) ____ air grievances during our sales meetings in Boston?
• My colleague in Seattle (will) ____ interrupt me whenever I speak with a key account.
• Laura (keep on) ____ stealing leads from the Dallas team.
• When Greg worked in New York, he (would) ____ always sandbag deals to look better.
• That high-maintenance rep (be always) ____ complaining about decision rights in Austin.

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