As a sales professional, have you ever had your confidence shaken by a significant loss? Once the initial depression blows over, the best way to move on is to have a process to go back to. Getting feedback from customers, colleagues and sales coaches about what you did wrong and what can be improved will give you confidence to try again. What do you do to regain confidence from a loss?

A lot of people know Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Even if the exact quote is not familiar to everyone, the basic idea behind it has become common sense: If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. When you think about your own personal goals, it may be obvious what needs to be done to achieve them.  You may need to get to the gym mor […]

I'm at Stone Henge, a site that has intrigued people for thousands of years and will continue to do so. An enduring reminder to dream big, think big, put it into action and make something awesome happen!A few quotes from my collection: •    "If you can dream it, you can do it... begin it now!"•    "You only know how far you can go by going too far."•   &nbsp […]

Politics: How power is exercised within an organization. It can make or break a deal.When facing a political selling game, the first step is to understand how you are personally positioned within the customer's environment.Player Map is a tool that can help you to identify if you are a "Pretender," "Producer," or a "Player." Your goal is to be a Player, and if you are not, move up at least one level and continue to elevate your position.Your customer& […]

Sales can be tough… the road can be rocky… it can be a climb.  That's the bad news… or is it?  It's the climb that makes us stronger.There is the competition that's tougher than ever.  The economy that… (I'll save time and just say it stinks).  There are difficult clients and more.  All of these things are bumps on the road; they're the rocks in the path and the incline.& […]

What's the best way to improve your skills? Whatever the skill may be the reality is one answer: practice. In the business world we need to develop our skills like athletes do in training. What do you do to practice and improve your skills?Share what you do to constantly practice and hone your sales skills.

A company that is able to execute well on its strategy, even if that strategy is far from perfect, will have much greater success than a company that cannot execute on a great strategy. Most companies struggle to leverage their core competency to take advantage of complementary markets.  I agree with Joe Thomas, who in a recent vlog, used Disney as an example of a company that is "on the ball."  One of the things that impresses me about Disney is th […]

The idea of reducing interference starts with the sales leader. Sales leaders who openly show stress are often unwitting carriers of stress and interference. They actually make it worse by bringing fear into the workplace.Alan Fine has done a lot of work around the idea of breakthrough coaching. One idea he mentions is "reducing interference." Alan maintains that the way to achieve breakthrough performance is not to focus on new things, or what people don't already kno […]

Changing a culture in any organization can take years. If you are part of a team that is driving change, you are likely continually running into the same types of obstacles, ranging from apathy about what you are trying to accomplish to outright resistance from members of the status quo.Leaders often fail to clearly demonstrate that the level of commitment their team makes to a transformation directly impacts the degree of success each individual will achieve. They may not provide conv […]

When clients talk to us about making big changes within their organization, it always comes down to leadership. In fact, if we don't have leadership onboard, we find that it's a nonstarter. People choose to be leaders. They have the ability to look at the system and also look outside of it. Without leadership, change does not happen in an organization. Leadership provides leverage to make things happen. Without it, very little moves.