Review of Advanced Structures for Sales Managers

• In your first 100 days as a sales manager in Boston or Seattle, you need advanced grammar to report past plans, describe annoying behaviours, and talk about hypothetical scenarios. This lesson reviews tenses, the future in the past, verb + object + infinitive, habits, and the unreal past.
• Grammar Area
• Structure / Rule
• Example in Sales Context
• Future in the Past
• was going to / was about to
• I was going to close the Chicago contract.
• Habits & Annoyance
• is always + -ing / would
• He is always missing his quarterly targets.
• Unreal Past
• It's time / would rather + past
• It's time we hired a new director in Miami.
• Remember
• Use 'was going to' or 'was to' to express past intentions or scheduled arrangements that may have changed.
• Use 'is always + -ing' or 'keep on + -ing' to highlight repetitive, often annoying team habits.
• Use past tenses after 'It's high time', 'would rather', and 'what if' to express unreal present or past situations.
• Examples
• When I started in Dallas, I was supposed to inherit a clean pipeline.
• She is always missing team syncs in San Francisco.
• It's high time we updated our sales playbook in Atlanta.
• Common mistakes
• It's high time we update our Austin strategy.
• It's high time we updated our Austin strategy.
• He always is interrupting our meetings in New York.
• He is always interrupting our meetings in New York.

Complete the sentences

• When I arrived in Seattle, I (expect) ____ the team to close more deals.
• It's high time you (review) ____ the performance metrics in Denver.
• He (always miss) ____ his quarterly forecast in Chicago.
• I would rather we (focus) ____ on enterprise accounts in Boston.
• She (supposed to) ____ deliver the Austin presentation yesterday.
• What if we (hire) ____ a new regional director for Miami?

Sources: photo by Vitaly Gariev on Pexels