At a recent conference, I started out by quoting from my favorite American philosopher, Will Rogers.  Here’s what the Oklahoma cowboy said: “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble.  It’s what we know that ain’t so.” That wisdom certainly applies to the field of persuasion.  There are things that people are certain ... Read Post

No matter how you slice it, sales management is a tough job. The sales force is the front line of revenue. Company management doesn’t put that pressure on the salespeople, though: they place it squarely on you, the sales manager. The sales manager is the person responsible for meeting sales quotas, figuring out how they’re ... Read Post

About Rentals United Rentals United is a channel management business for the holiday rental market. Located in Stockholm, Sweden, the company — with clients worldwide — exemplifies today’s digital global business. Rentals United has two categories of clients: Property suppliers – Owners and managers with holiday rental properties can list and automate marketing of their ... Read Post

While preparing for a recent corporate training workshop, I recommended to the company’s management team that we conduct a pre-survey with their participants. The results pointed to two critical sales issues that you cannot afford to ignore. The company’s management team asked, “Why do we need to do a survey? We know what issues we ... Read Post

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, stated: “How you manage information determines whether you win or lose.” When improving decision making in a business, we need to understand the difference between data and information to define our data quality goals. Data and information are not the same–and they should not be confused. Just What Is Data? ... Read Post

You may have heard of the mushroom syndrome. It’s where you’re basically kept in the dark and fed — well, let’s just say — fertilizer. The mushroom syndrome as it applies to management is often called “mushroom management.” Unfortunately, it is more common than we’d like to believe– and can be disastrous A fantastic example ... Read Post

Daniel Newman explores new ways to demonstrate the ROI of Marketing efforts. In Marketing, the job starts and ends with the goal of creating customers. However, in a world gone social where mobile, big data, and 24×7 availability of technology rule the roost, brands need a new method for measuring their marketing return on investment ... Read Post

“. . . There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”—Donald Rumsfeld Rummy sure has a way with ... Read Post