We’ve descended into total “ball” season, folks: football, baseball, the other “football” affectionately known as soccer, and even volleyball. In our house with two sporty kids, right now we’re either playing a game, practicing for a game, watching a game, or talking about a game. I’m writing this post after my daughter’s volleyball practice tonight...Read More

Watching the sales activity of several sales teams lately, I have come to the conclusion that these teams are truly confused about the differences between MARKETING and SELLING. I work with many small businesses where the business owner and/or the small sales teams sell and there is often NOT a marketing department within the company....Read More

Having spent many of my first sales years in the TV industry, I absolutely LOVE seeing the new fall shows in the July upfronts. We got a sneak peek into the new shows and the returning favorites. I still get giddy at fall previews and this year, couldn’t believe that Survivor was coming back for...Read More

Several months back I was sitting in on a sales meeting with a new client, observing her sales team, what she asked of them and what they reported. When asked about the progress on meeting with a particular prospect, one sales rep admitted, with frustration, “I don’t know what his problem is. I just haven’t...Read More

In the previous post, we took a hard look at building a more flexible sales process that is completely centered around your customer starting with Assessing Your Features From Your Customers’ Perspective. This practice helps you build your selling messages around the variable points that are truly meaningful to your customers. But wait! There’s More!...Read More

How many times have you been “pitched” to or sat in a meeting with someone blathering on about the “Features and Benefits” of their products? I say “blathering” because that’s what it feels like when someone is sitting in front of you talking about their product, their features and what THEY believe are the benefits....Read More

As the topic of probably 1/3 of all conversations and certainly 1/3 of all social media posts, this election is truly remarkable and will certainly be dissected 7,432 ways in the history books. What I think is remarkable from a sales vantage is how these Presidential Candidates are masterful in their communication and the response...Read More

Where does blog inspiration come from? Many, MANY posts over these last few years have come from being on the buying side – analyzing and reverse engineering my experience as a customer to share the Do’s, Don’ts and #SALESFAILS that can help my clients and audience build smarter sales strategies. Many blog posts also come...Read More

“Everyone’s on vacation”, “It’s too hot to get out and see a bunch of people”, “No one is making decisions right now” . . . Recognize these statements? They’re the little lies we tell ourselves because during these Dog Days of summer, we’re hot, we’re tired, and either trying to catch up from being on...Read More

Recently, I handed over my email address to a sales technology company and much to my annoyance, my phone number, name of my company, title, and headcount – to download an e-book of “sumthin’ or other” (it was so memorable, I couldn’t tell you the details of what or why I opted in). The promise...Read More