Your victories and failures do not define you. Unless you let them. In sales, we experience victory and failure in roughly equal measures. It’s the nature of the beast. All of our victories, and failures, are transitory. The joy and pain equally fleeting. If you hit quota one month, on the first day of the […]

It seems like hardly a day goes by without reading some nonsense online about why relationships aren’t important in sales. Anyone who says relationships are unimportant in selling is wrong. It seems clear that they don’t understand what a relationship is. Let’s keep it really simple. A relationship is defined as the way two or […]

What’s your buyer’s ROI on the time and attention they invest in you? B2B buyers want to make purchase decisions faster. Up to 40% faster according to one study. What’s holding them back? Empty, valueless sales touches that don’t help the buyer make progress toward making a purchase decision. Take a second here and estimate […]

I was thinking about my friend Don this morning. Years ago Don and I swam in the same Masters swimming program. We often swam in the same lane; though he was faster than I was and I usually spent the entire workout chasing his feet. Don is a successful entrepreneur and a very positive thinker. […]

Here’s something to ask yourself. Are you afraid to change? Consider this quote from WH Auden’s long poem The Age of Anxiety: “We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment and see our illusions die.” Auden accurately captured the state of B2B […]

Every day, someone somewhere is publishing a mediocre podcast episode about B2B sales. Look no further than your podcast app and social feeds for proof. If you listen closely enough, you can hear someone switching on their mic and hitting the record button. And for all those podcasts, there are listeners. In 2020, an estimated […]

Every top sales professional I’ve worked with, shared that common trait. They broke the “rules.” I’m not talking about ethical violations. I’m referring to the rules defined by rigid sales processes and methods that are forced onto sellers. Rules typically that are established by managers and executives for their own convenience. Or to operate within […]

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. According to a recent Johns Hopkins study, 26% of US adults suffered mental illness in 2020. Research suggests that mental illness among sellers is even more prevalent. And it’s been compounded by the unprecedented stresses brought on by the pandemic. And by the transition to work from anywhere that […]

Why are you wasting valuable sales time having salespeople negotiate contracts? I’ve grown plenty of high performing sales teams. I’ve never spent a dollar on training my sellers on negotiation. That’s not their job. Not to mention most sellers are horrible at it. (Though most think they are great at it.) What many sellers consider […]

What is the true purpose of AI and technology? How should it be leveraged in business? Is big data or small data better? And is this all actually improving our lives? These are questions that our Founder and CEO, Howard Brown, recently answered on the Business is Human podcast. “The idea of using technology and […]

Let your sellers sell. It’s how they learn. Jesse Marsch is the first American to coach a soccer team in the UEFA Champions League, the premier club competition in the world. He’s the head coach of Red Bull Salzburg, the top team in Austria. He’s a master motivator and incredibly thoughtful about how to develop […]

You can’t stop at hearing. You have to listen, too. There’s a significant difference between hearing and listening. We use the words interchangeably. Which is a mistake because “hearing” and “listening” have very different meanings. (Just as persuasion and influence mean distinctly different things.) Hearing is an involuntary process that detects noise (or vibrations). Listening […]