When people think of "mindfulness" their minds are often filled with images of monks calmly meditating in a lotus position next to a flowing stream. They rarely connect mindfulness with salespeople prospecting on the phone or delivering a sales presentation. But I'm going to suggest that salespeople can get a lot out of mindfulness tools. It can help them improve both their personal satisfaction and professional success. It can help them focus. And yes, it can help them sell more. Let's look at why mindfulness can be a powerful path for salespeople and how they can start walking it. The Mindfulness Trend in Business Mindfulness … [Read more...]
How Peer Pressure Kills New Sales Initiatives (And How it Can Save Them)
Let’s be honest, the world of selling is changing a lot right now. For those responsible for leading, managing, and coaching sales teams, there is always a new program or tool to adopt. But, as you might have found out, it is rarely an easy transition. Getting people to adopt new behaviors is hard. There is usually a lot of resistance and change is slow. Many factors impact that friction, but there’s a big one that escapes most people’s attention. Peer pressure. Peer Pressure Stymies New Programs On a recent podcast by author Malcolm Gladwell, he shared a story about the career of Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt, while one of the best … [Read more...]
I Meditate Because I Suck at It
Somewhere down the line I’ve developed the reputation among some people as that Zen guy. That's sometimes said while they extend their hands with their finger and thumb touching. They might even add an ohhmmm sound for effect. It’s seems to describe for people someone who meditates and tries to be, as the comedian Eddie Izzard would say, relaxed and groovy. And that's hilarious because my mind rarely feels very Zen-like. My Monkey Mind is Hyper-Active In Buddhist circles, they often talk about the monkey mind. It describes the fact that your mind jumps frenetically from topic to topic like a monkey in a tree. A lot of days, I … [Read more...]
Why You Fail in Changing Your Selling Habits (And What to Do Instead)
There's an often-quoted, always mis-attributed aphorism that goes, "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got." It points to the fact that if you want to get different results, you have to change your activities. If you want to different outputs, you need different inputs. Sounds simple, right? But if it's simply a matter of different inputs, then why do many of us consistently fail to change our sales results? It's because at the beginning of each new year, each new quarter, and each new sales contest, salespeople sit down and promise themselves (and their sales managers) that it's … [Read more...]
You’re Either Green & Growing or Brown & Dying
Learn How to Learn from Other Disciplines
I'm a big fan of personal and professional development. You kind of have to be when you're in this line of business. I'm much more likely to watch a TED talk or listen to an instructional podcast than watch the latest binge-worthy Netflix series. (I've purposefully never watched Game of Thrones because I know it will suck me in.) It may seem boring, but I have a trick that keeps things interesting. It also keeps me from being a boring person who can only talk about a few things. I reach far and wide for people and programs to learn from. For example, I don't listen solely to sales podcasts or watch videos on why I should wake up … [Read more...]
The Best Way Through Problems is Through Them
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