Forty-two years ago I decided I wanted to pursue a career in business.  Selling was not really on my radar.  My vision was putting deals together and making things happen.  I took business classes, accounting classes, advertising classes, management classes, marketing classes and even classes dealing with importing and exporting.  I enrolled in every class [...]

Several years ago during the early days of my professional sales career, I was exposed to what I believed at the time, to be a very novel and progressive aspect of employee management.  As part of a very formal management activity, I met with my direct supervisor in an annual goal setting and performance evaluation.  [...]

The very best next source for new sales is with an existing customer.  That existing customer can also produce the second best source of new sales and that is through referrals.  A referral from a happy, satisfied customer will keep you from consuming large amounts of time making cold calls.  Cold calls can produce sales, [...]

Setting a goal is easy. Anyone can decide they want to do something and set a goal. However, all goals are not the same, and most goals are never achieved. When it comes to goals and achievement, most salespeople don’t correctly use this powerful principle to their advantage. Let me take a few moments and [...]

Some salespeople talk fast.  Others never stop talking.  Still, there are those who talk fast and never stop talking.  There is an ill founded notion that if you talk fast and talk longer, that you will discourage others from asking questions or bringing up issues you would rather not discuss.  Then there are those salespeople [...]

There is a small segment of the sales population that we might consider over achievers.  There is another similar sized group that we might consider under achievers, relating to their sales performance.  The world needs more of the former and fewer of the latter.  In the middle, lie the majority of all salespeople, safely protected [...]