Is sales a tal­ent, a learned skill? Or is it a genetic trait, one passed down within some DNA sub struc­ture?
I now fully believe that is all about the breed­ing. If you are  a good sales per­son then chances are high that your father’s, father’s, father was out mak­ing quota sell­ing buggy whips or […]

Are you run­ning out of air or are you mis­read­ing the objec­tive…..
Let’s say you’re on the beach, swim­ming just off shore. You notice a shiny object on the ocean floor. You go back to the beach, grab your snorkel and fins, and head back out.
On the way out you see the tide com­ing in. Now […]

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 […]

More and more of my accounts have con­tracted with  ven­dor man­age­ment com­pa­nies and are con­trol­ling the patrolling  inside their com­pa­nies.
What a waste of time and money! Not just mine, but theirs.  Sales peo­ple bring real value expos­ing busi­ness lead­ers to new tech­nol­ogy,  ser­vices and best prac­tices.
Sure, I under­stand that busi­ness lead­ers can’t  have a open […]

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 […]

Lying, no good horse thieves.
You know the stereo type. Say any­thing, to any­body.  Get the sale. Love ‘em and leave ‘em.
Fact of the mat­ter is, most of my col­leagues, friends and past asso­ciates are above board and con­duct their busi­ness with the utmost integrity.   Most peo­ple can smell a sleaze ball a mile away.  If you […]

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 […]

There’s a prospect I’d been call­ing on, for sev­eral months.   Their project has started and stopped sev­eral times this year, but this past month we were hot and heavy on the clos­ing trail.
We’d agreed on final sys­tem con­fig­u­ra­tion, made arrange­ments for alter­na­tive financ­ing, and come to agree­ment on final pric­ing.
Inter­face specs had been blessed by all parties […]

What’s in a promise?
More and more we have to promise more and more.  Sell it , make that weekly nut, take a breath, and do it all over again, and again, and again.
One of the most dif­fi­cult things to over­come is the del­i­cate bal­ance between integrity and accom­plish­ment.
Those nomads in the land of sell whatever -  […]

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 […]