We are returning from a European family vacation as I write this. We visited Paris, London — yes, unfortunately, during the crazy heat — and a small medieval town in the Loire Valley of France called Chinon. In Chinon, there was an excellent wine shop near our...

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 27 of my 2018 book, Selling Boldly (published by Wiley). You can see it and buy it on Amazon here. How many times has somebody been selling to you, and you’re ready to go, ready to buy, you may even have your wallet in your...

Making proactive communications to customers and prospects tends to be uncomfortable for salespeople, even though the recipients find them extraordinarily valuable. So it helps to know why we make these communications, who we make them for, and who deserves for us to...

In the last two weeks, I've been asked to do a half dozen speeches and appearances about sales growth in a contracting or recessionary economy. That's because the sales environment of the last several economic boom years is doing a literal 180. During these recent...

Today's message is brief: By the time you send a quote or proposal, you have done 99% of the work. You have built the relationship, serviced the customer (often for years), jumped through hoops, researched and wrote the quote or proposal, and you sent it. But this 99%...

Think baseball or softball: Every sales communication is a swing of the bat. Every proactive call. Every did you know question, or reverse did you know question. Every quote follow up. Every referral request. Every pivot to the sale, or every time you ask for the...

Most salespeople are experts at taking orders and servicing the customer. This makes them more customer service people than salespeople. They build relationships, solve problems, and take orders by email and incoming phone calls. You know what they don’t do? Call...

I was interviewing a distributor client's customer and this is what he said about other suppliers he buys from -- my client's competition:   "When they're busy, they just pick up the phone and slam it down without saying anything."   I was incredulous, and...

I have a prospective client who has been considering working with me…for seven years. Like many of my clients, it’s a multigenerational family business in an industry in which I’ve had a tremendous amount of success generating significant growth. We’ve not yet worked...

Good morning and happy Monday! The 40-minute recording of last week's webinar is on my Youtube channel here: I presented several planners during this session, and you can download them by clicking here: 5-2022 Webinar Planners.pdf. Finally, head on over to our private...