Gratitude is one of your biggest sales tools
Most of the sales people who I know have lots of confidence. With some, it might even border on arrogance. Confidence is a critical attribute for successful sales, as believing you can get a result is vital to making it happen. But another attribute is almost as important: the often-underappreciated trait of gratitude. Ridiculous, you […]
Your Network is Terrible and It Will Kill You
A couple of questions: Could you quickly secure a new job solely on the strength of your connections? Could you start a business and achieve self-sufficiency immediately based upon your connections? I suspect that the answer is ‘no’ to both questions, as it proved to be for me in December 2005 when I chose to […]
Take Responsibility for Your Actions
Recently I have started to notice a trend where people will blame others for situations that are truly their own responsibility. You probably know what – or who – I’m talking about. Can you sell or what? Typically, as a sales manager, I am fairly cautious when setting sales goals. Some would say that […]
The Power of the Increment
When I reflect upon the success I’ve achieved to date and consider the details, I’m always amazed to consider the origins and my journey so far. Given different accomplishments, it’s instructive to consider how things got started. Everything that’s happened has done so in a series of increments, some of which have been positive and […]
Am I Important to You?
While on a recent a business trip, I continued reading a book, The Magic of Thinking Big, that I had first started reading a number of years ago. The book has many great insights, but one that particularly struck me was the recommendation to “treat everyone you deal with as if they are important.” The […]
The Blueprint for Launching a New Event
As it turns out, creating an event blueprint is pretty simple – at least in theory. These are the key components: Idea You need to have an idea and that idea has to be better than what already exists. It must be smarter, more exciting, have better participants, or a new model that suits the […]
How to Get Your Freebies to Pay
Many of my publisher clients offering events have found that one of the main hurdles they face when launching an event is the challenge of converting customers – often accustomed to free content – into paying conference attendees. You may have also have this problem as a non-publisher if you are trying to upgrade expo […]
The secret to success is……
The secret to success is the ability to stand in another person’s shoes. That’s particularly true if you are trying to do business with that person. An Old Tale Still Rings True Remember the story of the two brothers who had to share a piece of cake? The elder brother managed the situation in […]
Six things that you must do between shows
The show is over, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. If you are smart, you’ll also do these things before taking too long of a pause. 1. Clean your database You’d be shocked how many event companies don’t ‘sanitize’ their contact lists on a regular basis. Cleaning out the bounced emails and returned mail (if you […]
Is There an Attendee Acquisition Disaster in Your Future?
Having just read an article on GDPR that suggests a silver lining for the events business can be found in that new EU regulation, I’ve concluded that the author is right for the most part, if you have a solid data strategy. But if you don’t, welcome to the nightmare. Why? If you follow good […]