Time to give thanks for being a sales guy.
Whether Sales is a pro­fes­sion or a trade, no mat­ter how the econ­omy twists and turns, some­body is going to need some­thing sold.  
It’s been that way since the begin­ning of time.  After the wheel was invented the next fel­low hired was a sales guy to get rid of the […]

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 […]

Edi­tors note:  By day, Tuna is a pro­fes­sional sales per­son,  hump­ing his bag across his multi-state ter­ri­tory.  By night and week­ends he is an accom­plished  semi-professional poker player.   (Which  I guess means  he can’t com­pletely pay his mort­gage play­ing poker) What fol­lows is a the first of a series as Tuna looks at the similarities […]

Mel I am
I am Mel
Oh now how I love to sell
What I do not like is to call cold
It makes me seem much too bold
No one likes me
I’ve been told
No one, no one wants to be sold
I’ve tried call­ing, email , let­ter
“Mr. Prospect,  10 or 2 bet­ter?”
Will you meet me in the warm or cold?
No, I will not meet in […]

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 […]

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 […]

No doubt about it the phone is your most valu­able tool.
It is the method of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with prospects and clients. When you think about it noth­ing hap­pens in most sales jobs with­out a phone call.   You can’t build your pipe with­out it and you cer­tainly can’t close with­out it.
What amazes me is how bad some sales people […]

At the Air­port last week, had some time to kill before my con­nec­tion so I decided to get a shine. (At this point let me say that a shoe shine is one of THE best things you can ever do. Some­one fusses over you, it’s cheap, there’s imme­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion, and your shoes look great.)
For rea­sons that […]

This is one of those top­ics that requires some self aware­ness. And, some desire to actu­ally NOT rel­ish in the dis­trac­tions of your job. I know so many peo­ple who just can’t get out of their own way. They spin up inter­nal BS; they med­dle with use­less part­ner reps; or they focus on the details […]