Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” The implication is clear…if you do not try…you will not succeed This is true in sales where if you don’t ask for the sale you can’t get the sale. It’s also true in everyday life. There have been instances in my life […]
William Shakespeare (Bill to his friends) said, It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. I have often said if I had a time machine, I would go back in time to the late 1500s to early 1600s and throat-punch Shakespeare for talking so weirdly. I went to too many […]
I am not normally prone to BS headlines like I used for this post, but I wear my emotions on my sleeve and speak pretty plainly. One of the things I knew I would focus on when I retired was to evangelize about sales careers. The difference is that I was always going to focus […]
Country singer Toby Keith recently passed away. I remember watching the biography of country singer Toby Keith recently and was intrigued by the controversy of his song, “How Do You Like Me Now?” It’s about a guy who couldn’t get the attention of his dream girl in high school. The guy ultimately becomes rich and famous […]
Many of you know about my homeless initiative…if not you can learn about it over at ConnectTheDots.cc. I’ve been working on my manifesto for over a year in a Google doc. The other day I was searching for that doc and typed “my manifesto” into what I thought was the Google Docs search bar. Turns out […]
Tim Denning recently wrote an article titled, “If You Fit In, You Are Replaceable.” It wasn’t geared towards salespeople but it absolutely applies. Take my career for example. I started out selling radio advertising. I had spent the few years selling radio ads to traditional customers like car dealers and furniture stores. I wanted to separate […]
That’s the title of a post I did 15 years ago on a old Type Pad blog that I found is still active. Here’s the crazy part, everything in that post is still relevant (I never went or go for fads in business). The post references an article in the Wall Street Journal about the […]
I learned I was wealthy today. I came across this article about “Bookshelf Wealth” and how people love to display their books. That’s me….guilty as charged! To no one’s surprise there are people who love the term and others who went off. I am a simple person, I just love books and love displaying them. […]
So why do a post on what not to do? Because learning from mistakes, your own or others, always provides valuable advice. When I sold SharePoint training my instructors did a lot of SharePoint consulting. That carried a lot of weight with potential students. What carried even more weight was the fact my guys fixed […]
Professional selling is far from the negative stereotypes that often are associated with being a salesperson. In fact, professional selling is simply a skill that requires the ability to understand the customer needs, build trust, and communicate effectively. How complex that conversation depends on the complexity of what you are selling. If you are selling […]
