What have you done for me lately?   What???
Well it’s that time of year again and with the econ­omy the way it is, it’s been that time of year — all year.
Kudos to the lead­ers that bagged the big one and prayers for the oth­ers that have them on the hook and are try­ing to reel them […]

It’s Sep­tem­ber, so I’m guess­ing  you, like most of us,  had your annual or quar­terly National Sales Meet­ing at some point in the last few months .
You know the meet­ing com­pa­nies have early Jan­u­ary, mid Decem­ber or just ran­domly through the year.  My com­pany has fis­cal year end in June so for us we just had […]

Sales based movies are far and few between. When they do come out they are either about car sales, reflect the sales peo­ple as the stereo­type sleaze­ball or the depress­ing Willy Loman tragic sad sac.  But from time to time a scene or two cap­tures our lives and atti­tudes.
You know them. […]

Recently, I took the fam­ily to the State Fair. One of the great things about the fair, besides the fried Twinkies and other 1,200 calo­rie per bite culi­nary treats, are the guys that hawk their wares. If you’ve never expe­ri­enced this, it’s like one big trade show for infomer­cial stuff.
These guys and gals have […]

We know you love selling…But do you love your prod­ucts???
As a sales pro­fes­sional , when I’m watch­ing the TV, I can’t help but ana­lyze the prod­uct pitches in the com­mer­cials. I start think­ing to myself, man that guy is annoy­ing, but he is toooo smooth. Man that guy sucks,  or that guy was funny.
I’m not talking […]

Twenty-one days into the month and I had zero on the books. Null. Zip. Noth­ing. You get the pic­ture.
How­ever, the sit­u­a­tion was bright­ened with an appoint­ment so I got busy.
Get­ting up early, I did my pre-call research and gath­ered all my mate­ri­als.
Arriv­ing early, I greeted the par­tic­i­pants of the meet­ing with a smile and some food.
Ask­ing questions, […]

I was half way through last year (2008) and like most sales peo­ple – it was a very chal­leng­ing year. With two kids in col­lege, fail­ure was not an option. Yet, with both new accounts and sales vol­ume on the decline, my com­mis­sions were down and often miss­ing in action.
I’m in the com­puter net­work­ing business […]

Thanks to the Hired Gun for val­i­dat­ing that, yes, every­one does hate me. 
I’m start­ing to won­der if Hired Gun works where I do…
Regard­less, I still have a job to do. So, on to a more  under my con­trol kind of topic. Know­ing your indus­try and the busi­ness of your prospects.
I’ll spare you the indus­try that I’m […]

So it’s mid year.
You’ve cold called the crap out of your dirt, hit the ones you want, called the ones you need, and pushed the ones you know could use your prod­uct and noth­ings hap­pen­ing.
You are so happy.…The wife and kids are at the pool, and com­plain­ing about the heat and being bored doing the same […]