In Douglas Adam's 5-book trilogy, The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy, there's a running gag about the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. The characters find out that the Answer is 42. But Adams also posits that the Answer and the Question are mutually exclusive. If you know one, you can't know the other. So nobody can figure out what the actual question is. It amuses me because now that I'm 42, it would be nice if I had a few answers myself. I've been thinking about this as I get ready for a new addition to our family. If my son was asking me for some answers, what would I share? While I most certainly do not have the … [Read more...]
Play the Long Game
Why Mindfulness in Sales Will Make You Happier and More Effective
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
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