Not sure why it took working full-time for 35 years before pulling the trigger to make this happen, but I am so thankful that I finally listened to advisors, mentors, friends, and peers telling me to do it. I recently completed my first-ever sabbatical. 30 days off… The entire experience was wonderful, instructive, life-giving, convicting,
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I often get notes from people who read my blog or books asking where they can attend a public event to hear me speak. It’s flattering to be asked, but also frustrating to have to respond that “you can’t come see me” because 99% of the events I do are private engagements (sales kickoffs, annual meetings,
My sales management mentor, Donnie Williams (who was also my sales manager in the late 1990’s and my business partner in the early 2000’s), was great with one liners. He’s the one who came up with the quip I often use when salespeople tell us they are worried about selling more because production or the
The Sales Kickoff Meeting Season for 2017 is nearing its end. I’ve been privileged to speak to many sales teams across North America over the past six weeks, and there’s still one GIANT kickoff meeting remaining on my calendar. The good news is that you’re invited, it’s virtual, and you can attend from anywhere on
It’s a pretty good bet that your Super Bowl spread won’t be as healthy what’s pictured above! And if you’re in sales, whether as an executive, sales manager, or individual producer, it’s also a safe bet that there are higher-value uses of your time on Sunday than watching seven hours of pre-game shows. Hence, the timing
Consider this a belated New Year greeting my friends and followers. Hard to believe we’re four weeks into the year! Hope you’ve had an outstanding and highly productive January. My biggest challenge has been trying to remember where I parked in the airport garage and what hotel room I’m in from night night as the month
Happy Last Business Day of the Year! The week between Christmas and New Year’s is always a bit odd. We bounce between celebrating important religious holidays, visiting with family and friends, sprinting to close deals to finish the year strong, wrapping up year-end financial matters, and reflecting both on the year that was and the year to
I’ve got bad news and good news about your prospecting call. The bad news is that, most of the time, regardless of how well you’ve done in the early stages of the prospecting phone call (right mindset, good voice tone, great start, and compelling, customer-issue-centered, value-dripping mini statement), it’s highly likely that the first request
Yes, it really has been a month since the last post in this series. My apologies for the delay; I have been sprinting (flying) toward Thanksgiving with events scattered from New Hampshire to Lake Tahoe, Philadelphia to South Padre Island, Chicago to New Hampshire, St. Louis to Boston, and Jersey City to Jacksonville in just
In the first article of this series we covered how our attitude and mindset toward the phone and prospecting affect our performance. Today I want to tackle the first critical factor after we get our minds right and actually pick up the phone: voice tone. How you sound matters. A lot. Many of you may
Prospecting is back! Who would’ve thought that good ole traditional prospecting and picking up the phone to proactively call (and interrupt) prospects (without permission) would become so popular again? Heck, for all the abuse and lies heaped upon prospecting and prospectors the past five years, I’m surprised that we even have phones anymore let alone
Sometimes the solution to our sales problem is so simple that we can’t see it. I am pretty sure that this is one of those cases. What We Want We (sellers and sales leaders) ALL crave a full, healthy (fat), balanced, moving pipeline of sales opportunities. What We Typically Do Unfortunately, most of us in
Sales Friends, I get it. We want to be liked. We want to be seen as responsive. We want to show customers that we care and that we listen and that we can follow instructions… All of those things are wonderful. But there’s just one little problem: very often defaulting to our prospect’s (or their
This is Trevor. He’s the senior executive of a company he founded in the UK. He’s also an amazing human being. I think it is fair to say that after the few days we just spent together at our Supercharge Your Sales Leadership event in Atlanta, our relationship crossed from client-coach to friends. The way
