Reputation is Everything
Remember growing up when our mothers would nag us about who we were hanging around with, what we were wearing and how we behaved in public? Often her response when asked why we should care was “because I said so”. But as we grew into teens and young adults more often than not, the response [...]
#140MTL Exploring the State of NOW – May 15th, Montreal
If you’ve never heard of a 140 Character Conference (or 140conf for short), move along….nothing for you to read here. I’m just kidding! Don’t you dare go anywhere! Briefly, the 140conf concept begin with a guy named Jeff Pulver in 2009. Jeff is a brilliant entrepreneur who turned an interest in internet telephony into pioneering [...]
12 Most Disingenuous Customer Service Phrases
No matter how much is written about how valuable and integral to business success high quality customer service is, some companies still don’t get it.
There are those with blatantly poor customer service – so poor in fact, that online review forums are busting at the seams with post after post from their disgruntled customers. Make that ex-customers.
But what I find more deeply annoying, are the companies that seem to simply go through the motions of providing good customer service. read more
12 Most Embarrassing Moments in a Salesperson’s Career
Most people don’t choose a career in sales, a sales career chooses them. And it’s one of the most difficult career paths there is. It takes years of training, practicing, failing, and flailing to feel even slightly confident that you have a firm grasp of what it takes to be tops in sales in your [...]
#USGUYS IRL at #SMBS12
There are social media conferences, and then there are social media conferences. When I wrote this, I was sitting on an airplane flying back from one of the latter type. I was writing this long hand, in a legal pad because I couldn’t wait to get it all down. I first heard about #SMBS12 from [...]
Sales Tools to Toss from Your Toolbox – Now!
Sales by far, is one of the most difficult jobs there is. It is a never ending cycle of goals and quotas reached through networking, generating leads, presenting, cold calling, warm calling, emailing, connecting, following….etc… As soon as you reach your goal for that month, it starts all over again. Do a great job, and [...]
Two Big Changes That Have Affected the Way We Buy
When I conduct sales and marketing training, I almost always ask attendees what technological advancement of recent years has had the most impact on the way we conduct business. The top responses are almost always the iPad, Facebook, YouTube, the iPhone and Twitter….and on and on. But what drives those five? In reality the advance [...]
Top Ten Favorite Blog Posts of 2011
If there ever will be a “Year of the Blog”, 2011 is it. There were a ton of new bloggers last year, and many of them are simply fantastic. Also, many seasoned long-time bloggers noticed a sharp increase in blog followers thanks to Twitter and other social networks. Like most marketers, I find out about [...]
The 30 Second Elevator Speech Revisited
Been to a networking event recently? Don’t you just love the part when the microphone is passed around the room and everyone gets a chance to deliver their cleverly written, buzzword loaded, adjective bloated 30 second elevator speech?
Me neither.
It seems that we’ve made great strides in the way we digest information – we skim read, we look for bullet points, we listen for sound bites and we avoid reading long run on paragraphs. read more
The Art of Stepping Aside to Stand Out
As small business owners and entrepreneurs most of us struggle to have our voices heard over the relentless onslaught of advertisements and competitor taglines that our customers are confronted with almost daily. Many businesses owners try to be as loud as they can with their messaging hoping something sinks in – and for many companies [...]
