Is Arrogance Professional Suicide?
I’ve worked with many confident people and, as is true with other Type A’s, I’ve had the occasion to clash with some of them. There were times when it was about agreement on performance metrics; other times it was a matter of how to get things done. With respect to the latter, I have come […]
Whose Attention is the New Currency?
The more attention you can commit to things, the more value you will derive. Unfortunately, it’s not a matter of awareness; attention spans are now shorter than ever and paying attention is a challenge. With the many information inputs available, people are easily distracted in ways that interfere with the focus needed to understand what […]
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 […]