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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Because I’ve written an annual “Fall Selling Season” post the past few years, I was tempted to skip it this time around. But the more I talk with salespeople, sales managers and executives, the more I felt compelled to share some strong words as we head into this critical time of the year. I won’t get
You’re not special because you are busy. Working a bazillion hours and jamming your calendar with more meetings than your colleagues doesn’t make you more valuable. Or more productive. Your perpetually overwhelmed state should not be worn like a badge of honor. And we’d all appreciate it if you stopped bragging about how busy you
Just back from six days with Katie – unplugged – in the Canadian Rockies. It was great to get away. It was a much needed respite to reflect, refresh, recharge, rethink, recommit. The setting was glorious. The think-time was priceless. But honestly, unplugging was hard – harder than when I’ve done it in the past.
This may seem like a silly question: Who owns your calendar? If it’s your calendar after all, then you own it. Right? Well, based on what I see with way too many sales managers and salespeople, not exactly. I am continually amazed (which is probably an oxymoron because I really shouldn’t be “continually amazed” by the same thing) how
Greg Lhamon and I were talking sales, leadership, productivity and baseball recently. His passion and insight prompted me to ask him to guest post here. Enjoy: My best salespeople are fearless communicators. They know how to work a room. They’re great conversationalists. They laugh easily. They have an insatiable curiosity that leads them to ask
In the past few weeks I’ve led several sessions for various clients around structuring and conducting more effective sales calls. It’s such an interesting topic to tackle because so many salespeople have become complacent about how they prepare for and run an initial/discovery, face-to-face meeting with a prospective customer. I find this is particularly true
I am in the midst of leading sales training workshops for a client’s spring conference, and last week I spent four nights in a hotel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As much as I’ve traveled, this was my first trip to old steel country. The hotel is built on the grounds of what is/was the old Bethlehem
When the customer or prospect tells a salesperson to jump, a majority will not only respond with the traditional, “How high?” — but they typically do so with great excitement. What could be better? The customer wants me to do something and I will show them that I’m the best; I’m the fastest; I’m the
I get asked to read and review a lot of books. I’m not always able to, but love to sharpen my sword, learn new info, and help out an author when I can. If anyone appreciates the power and influence of book reviews, it’s me! Months ago I received a box in the mail from
I was talking sales talent with A-Player expert and talent guru Eric Herrenkohl when he shared this story with me. It was so valuable that I asked him to capture it in writing for a guest post here: Jim is a high-powered CEO with terrific natural sales ability. Clients and prospective clients alike love to have him
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
