Latest Articles
Latest Articles
Be An Island of Dependability for Your Customers In These Stressful Times
I’ve been traveling again to conference speeches, client workshops, and meetings with prospective clients. In the last week, I’ve had three different flights cancelled. Two others have been delayed by more than three hours. Last night at O’Hare a glance at the flight...
The Power of Proactive Selling
About 95% of companies -- your competition -- sell reactively. That is, they await incoming inquiries, orders, and requests, and fill the orders. That's because these inquiries, requests, and orders (and problems) come in all day long, and unless you quickly plan and...
The Many Selling Lessons Giant Pumpkins Teach
I've kept a large vegetable garden for about 20 years, but the last couple of years I've engaged in a related but all-encompassing hobby: growing giant pumpkins. As I write this, my two giants are estimated to be 800 pounds and 707 pounds (pic of the larger one...
The Four Mindsets for Sales Growth
We salespeople worry about offending our customers and prospects. We are fearful about overstepping, over-communicating. We are timid, because we don’t want to annoy. So we stay quiet, out of the way, because “if they need me, they will call me.” But that’s not how to...
Nobody Fails More Than Salespeople
Sure, sales is a tough profession. Nobody gets rejected more than us. Nobody experiences failure after expending significant focused effort more than us. In baseball, you're one of the best who has ever played if you fail 70% of the time. In sales, we fail more than...
As Supply Constraints Ease, An Extraordinary Opportunity To Permanently Grow Sales
Manufacturers and distributors make up about 80% of my clients. They are in sexy industries like lumber, chemicals, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and other industries that make the world go around. The vast majority of my clients are currently supply constrained. That...
Excellent Salespeople Simply Do The Work
I want to thank you for the many kind comments to last week's Fourth of July newsletter titled Wondrous America, about my family and the country that we love. It was gratifying to read your responses, and I particularly enjoyed the stories of your own family histories...
The Phone Will Always Be The Most Powerful Tool in Sales
Most salespeople talk twice as much as they listen
Most salespeople talk twice as much as they listen, whereas the key to success in sales lies from doing the opposite.
The Hardest Sales Call To Make Is Always The First One of the Day
The hardest sales call to make is always the first one of the day. Get that done and the rest will be easy.