July 2010 Blog Posts (12)

Many years ago Dick Van Dyke hosted a TV commercial on fire safety. The idea was that if your clothing caught on fire you were to drop to the floor and roll in order to put out the fire. His tagline was “Stop, drop, and roll, Dick, roll!”



We (the audience) were supposed to know what to do anytime we caught on fire without even having to think about it. Whew! I felt safer just watching that commercial. If I ever burst into flame I was prepared.



Now…

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The greatest failures, personal and professional and sometimes disguised as victory in the short term, are most often the result of hubris- believing you’ve achieved a bulletproof position and have an iron-clad advantage over your competitor or customer. You know…

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Have you ever heard the term “dance with who brought you?” No? Maybe it’s a Southern expression and I’m just showing my roots a little. Anyway, the meaning is essentially "go with your strengths." In other words, know what you do well and capitalize on it. It all sounds pretty logical – unless you plan to sell for a living. If you sell for a living you may want to consider branching out a little.



Several years ago I was working with one of my…

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Everyone knows that a follow up thank you note should be sent after each interview during the hiring process. Some feel it is just a task to hurry up and do, a two liner note that shows the hiring manager that you have a great sense of urgency by whipping the thank you e-mail out within 10 minutes of leaving the interview! It is quick and it does show a great sense of urgency and it can show a few more things too; like…

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I learned a particularly useful definition of leadership over 20 years ago, and it's this - leadership is influence beyond authority. A medical salesperson who has access to the hospital CEO, the low level VP who's invited to the strategy meetings, even the new marketing staffer who's ideas have him in…

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Have you seen the cartoon where one of the characters is chasing the other one into a room? It’s the one where just as he runs through the door he gets an anvil dropped on his head. It looks bad but it’s relatively painless – it’s a cartoon, remember? Nobody really gets hurt. In our world, the world of selling, it can be a little different. Those anvils hurt and the lumps on the head are definitely not a good…

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Emotional decisions can’t be overturned with logical arguments, data or rational thinking, and here’s the key - all decisions have an emotional component to them. When we try to influence other people’s decisions using only the left side of our brain (spreadsheets!), we ignore our ability to appeal to their emotional side. As salespeople, once…

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We’ve probably all had experiences that dramatically impacted how we do things. One of the most impactful encounters I had took place many years ago and changed my selling approach.



There was a certain physician in San Antonio Texas who was already a big customer of mine. He had been using my company’s products for some time already, before I took over the territory. While preparing to see him I determined to learn as much as I could about…

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Let's face it, looking for a (good) job now a days can seem like searching for water in the Mohave desert! With the current economic climate many people are turning to education to strengthen their appeal to employers. Those with four year degrees might try pursuing a Masters. But what about those without a four year degree? Are they expected to head back to school part time for 6 plus years to earn their bachelors? That would rack up $60,000 dollars or more in…

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From the first day we attended sales training we were taught the importance of probing. Probe early, probe often, probe, probe, probe! We learned about open probes and closed probes. Some of us were even trained on exotic sounding probes like “the maximum leverage probe.” We were turned into probing machines and then released on our unsuspecting customers. Wow! Scary, huh?



The reason I say it’s scary is that many times there is no particular probing strategy… Continue

I received a question from my public blog posts concerning mid career changes from Tom. After responding to it, I thought I would share it. This is tough one and if anyone would like to add their opinions as to what there answer would be...please feel to share your experience or opinion. This is my take:

 

 

 

 

 

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