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Post-Sabbatical Takeaways on People, Places and My Professional Life

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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Stop Over Analyzing Your List and Get in Front of Strategic Target Prospects Now

I can make the strong case that a large percentage of the underperforming salespeople and sales teams I work with struggle because of lack of  activity — specifically, lack of face-time and meaningful dialogue with the right contacts at strategic target prospects. There is nothing controversial about that statement, and I bet most gurus, executives

Stop Checking Email in Bed and Take Back Your Early Morning and Your Calendar

I had a great, energizing, productive and life-giving week, and hope you did, too. Thursday I led a full-day session covering the major themes from New Sales. Simplified. for a client’s BD team, and then spent Friday in 1:1 coaching sessions with many who attended on Thursday. The individual sessions were as unique as I’d ever experienced

The Joy of Coaching Confident Top Performers Who are Always Looking to Improve

I love almost every aspect of what I do in my business. But beyond all, my absolute favorite thing is getting to work with top-producing sales stars. Don’t get me wrong; they’re not always easy. Many are demanding, high-maintenance and supremely confident in their approach. And all of them are incredibly selfish with their time.

Senior Executives are Hurting Sales by Piling Too Much Crap on the Sales Manager

When speaking to organizations or coaching sales teams, I am quick to point out how little time most salespeople spend truly pursuing new business. In fact, depending on what I observe at a particular client, it’s not uncommon for me to boldly state that the simple reason they are not developing enough new business is

Words of Wisdom from Jerry Seinfeld on Life, Love, Passion and Greatness

Earlier this week Mike Greenberg excitedly tweeted that his idol, Jerry Seinfeld, would be an in-studio guest on Mike and Mike in the Morning. I love both Greeny and Seinfeld, and as native New Yorker who’s a huge sports fan, this was about as it good as it gets for sports-talk show during Super Bowl

Blunt Interview re: Sales Managers Who Can’t Coach, Strategic Targeting & Fixing Your Story

I love talking Sales Management and New Business Development, and this fun, quick-htting interview on Joe McGonigal’s podcast was absolutely a blast. We jammed a ton of value and ideas into this brief conversation. Whether you’re a senior executive, sales leader or individual producer, you’ll be challenged and entertained. I shared blunt thoughts on topics

New Sales. Simplified. Goes Back to College

My oldest son is a junior in high school. We’ve been ramping up our college research, visiting campuses (free copy of my book to the first three people who contact me and correctly identify the university pictured above), and on Saturday morning he took the ACT for the first time. It brought to mind this great post Dr. Dawn

Year-End Questions for Sales Professionals as the Sun Sets on 2013

I spent the past week reflecting back on 2013 and reviewing plans for the year ahead. Yesterday, some dear friends provided a tour of their favorite spots in the Florida Keys. While the Lobster Rueben sandwich, beaches and chocolate dipped frozen Key Lime Pie on a stick were beyond fantastic, the sunset pictured above (taken

Thankful and Thank You!

At some point today a major transition will take place in my brain and heart. I’ll intentionally make the hard pivot from intense focus on wrapping up business matters to wrapping a few last gifts and then turn my attention fully toward celebrating Christmas, my family and this incredible year. Like many of you, I

Executives, Managers and Salespeople Must be More Selfish to Drive Improved Results

I wrote recently asking executives, managers and salespeople if they were moving the needle on high payoff activities or just simply busy. The piece got a lot of play and also caught the attention of the editors at Open View Labs who wanted to further explore the topic of being “Selfishly Productive.” And because this

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Obedient Order-Taker and Yes-Men/Women Salespeople Don’t Win More Business

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

The ROI Is Huge for Those Who Implement

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