Did you ever notice people become more serious at the beginning of September? Gone are the lazy days of summer and in front of us are four important months before year end. I call this the “Back to School Mentality.” I see it as much amongst adults as I do amongst...
It sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? We personalize our conversations all day long with the people we know. It comes to us as naturally as reaching for our first cup of coffee in the morning. Yet, in all my years of selling and coaching others to sell,...
Make the most of your summer by seizing new business opportunities while your competition takes time off! While it’s true that most people do vacation in August, I don’t know anyone who goes away for 4 weeks straight! What does this mean for you? It means people are...
April marked the three year anniversary of my dad’s passing. I keep thinking about the ways he influenced me over the years. He owned his own business and was in sales for most of his entire career. One of my favorite stories about him takes place early in his career...
It’s frustrating when sales don’t close. If deals don’t close as often as you believe they should, assess why and fix it so you can accelerate results. Ask yourself these 6 questions to help pinpoint why sales may not be closing. 1. Is this prospect the right kind of...
The perfect pipeline includes a consistent incoming flow of new prospect relationships with the exact right decision makers. Most business leaders and sellers say they can close sales most the time when they are in front of the right prospects. The problem is they...
Next month, my 22 year old daughter will begin her first real job working for the company which initially turned her down. How did she get the job, despite the initial rejection? Here’s her story. A month before graduation from University of Maryland, Jamie went...
It’s no secret that buyer behavior has changed with the ease of information access we all enjoy through the internet. With a click of the mouse, we can get what we need to evaluate new products and services. There’s no doubt that shifting some dollars to digital...
Over the last year I’ve heard several stories about lost sales opportunities. Many occurred as a direct result of post-conference oversights that could have been avoided. It happens too often. Join me by shaking your head as you read the story below. Then, vow to...
The "Assume Close" strategy when opening doors has proven exceptionally successful, especially when working on securing meetings with difficult to reach corporate decision makers. Most recently, one of our Door Openers® used it and booked a meeting with a high level...
At the Fortune Magazine Scaling Up Conference in Atlanta, Verne Harnish, author of Scaling Up, Founder of Gazelles and Entrepreneurs Organization called me to the stage. He asked me to share a sales tip with the audience of 1000 growth-focused business leaders. As I...
While most of us need a second chance now and then in life, there are rarely second chances in business development. You can’t call a busy vice president or CEO a second time and say, “Hey, our first conversation really didn’t go the way that I wanted it to. Can we...