Most small businesses don’t yet have a sales team. All the “selling” has been shouldered by the owner from the launch and through the growth of the business and that owner wears way too many hats. For successful businesses, at some point, the owner decides that growth requires sharing that “sales” hat and then seeks...Read More

In our business and professional life, sometimes the hardest things for us to grasp is that working harder isn’t always the answer to becoming better. We all get busy “Making the donuts”, servicing customers or accounts and making sure we produce what we’ve promised. However, tomorrow’s orders are never certain, but competition and new obstacles...Read More

We are hard wired to protect the status quo. Find your new mantra for change here: This past week, I was preparing relevant stories and “sticky” examples to deliver the sales module at a conference for entrepreneurs; I was struck with admiration for the people who had signed up for this event. These people are...Read More

With several Sales Kick Off meetings on the books for this first quarter, we have a lot of “Selling” talk going on in our office as we develop content, slides and breakout sessions. The one thing we’re NOT talking about in our Sales Kick Off meetings: Sales Techniques. Selling has never been about Technique ....Read More

“Next Year” is just a few weeks away. Right about now, you’re decking the halls and putting on party pants to spend special time with friends and family but don’t throw away the rest of this year yet! Now is a great time to lay out your strategy so you can hit the ground running...Read More

Today’s blog tackles the last of the 4 Tenets of Modern Consumers: Collaboration. It didn’t take much to find a relevant example of why we demand this in our partnerships – this story is from this just past week: Alright, STOP. Collaborate and Listen . . . {If you chuckled here, I know you either...Read More

Does this title feel ALL too familiar to you? I write this blog as I had an encounter with a business prospect last week. “Tom” had met me and heard me speak at a conference about “Meeting the Modern Consumer” and sent me an email to discuss what that really meant for his business. Tom...Read More

Have you ever had a chat with someone and you walked away with your “Spidey Sense” screaming that the conversation and/or the person was completely full of it? Or did you have the feeling that what they “said” was not in alignment with their intentions or actions? I call that “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire”...Read More

As Employees, Employers, Bosses & Business Owners, our lifeblood is our relationships to each other. That “interconnectedness” is inescapable to make the economic machine go round. As a Sales Executive, Director and Entrepreneur, my collaborative and transparent relationships with customers, suppliers, production staff and managers have contributed greatly to my work success. We rely on...Read More

If you’re an innovator, builder, game changer, entrepreneur, promotion seeker or department of ONE, it can be lonely trying to forge new paths. No one can share your burdens directly – even with empathy and support in your work, it can be a hard and isolating journey filled with doubt, sacrifice and wrong turns before...Read More