If you don’t know what “being customer-focused” means or can’t measure it, you can’t know if you’re doing it.  Many company leaders desire customer focus. Fewer know exactly what that term means. Fewer still can describe specific behaviors to know how far they’ve progressed on a journey toward customer focus. Let’s fix that in this article. ... Read Post

Service-based businesses face a variety of unique challenges when trying to attract clients. Businesses that provide a service, instead of a product, are organizations that sell knowledge, skills and whatever is between their ears. Be Clear on the Ideal Client: Many businesses don’t have a real, clear definition of their ideal client. People assume that ... Read Post

New salespeople can quickly become frustrated with their chosen career path.  They don’t realize that ‘no’ is usually the conversation starter. However, a few simple questions can provide the underlying thought and the exact meaning behind ‘no.’  The response is not always exactly as you believe it to be. For entertainment, ask senior salespeople to ... Read Post

It’s not often that a radical idea enters the sales world and significantly alters the way that things are done. However, there are many assumptions about the traditional approach to sales management that are not correct, and a radical idea was needed to make things optimal. The Radical Approach: In many different areas of work, ... Read Post

Previously in our series on building a house of business, we’ve taken up the vision, the experts it takes to get started, and bringing the vision and plan to reality. Now, let’s see what it takes to bring that building smoothly from stage to stage, in a timely manner. The Teams An interesting fact about ... Read Post

What is Your Sales Reputation? Now that you’ve closed out another quarter — possibly another year – it’s a good time to reflect. Now is a good time to ponder some big themes that will affect your, and your business results in this new year. It might be a good time to do a little ... Read Post

It is such a colossal waste of time and resources when a company invests in a search for their ideal candidate, interviews multiple top-notch candidates, extend the offer, and then fails to integrate the candidate correctly, thereby causing the candidate to resign. On-Boarding is essentially extending a welcome mat to a new employee, and it ... Read Post

When Good Intentions Aren’t Good Enough: Intentional conflict is not when someone purposefully creates clashes in the workplace. Rather, intentional conflict is something that is created and done with a specific goal in mind. External intentions, which are usually good, can often counteract internal intentions like avoiding conflict, not upsetting someone, defensiveness, etc. For example, ... Read Post