Slow Messaging: When I was in the corporate world, we had an understanding that a human being would answer the phone no later than the second ring. Even when I had an executive assistant, she was to pick up the call. And, if she was not at her desk, I had to pick up the call. Those days are long …
If We’re So Smart: Lately, there have been many articles on most media platforms about how we humans are purposely manipulated by other humans. On the surface, that seems a bit crazy. After all, we are the most intelligent species on earth, right? Yet, we see suckers being born every day. The Silly Season Let’s start with the misleading and …
HBR on Retail: An article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR — Jan/Feb 2019, pg 72) suggested that the brick and mortar retail industry is “squandering their most potent weapons” against their e-commerce competition. The author suggests that thehidden advantage is in the store is salespeople. I’m afraid I have to disagree. The rest of the article is fine. I …
Persuaded: I will admit that I picked this book up with grave misgivings. I was asked by the author’s assistant to review the book but declined to do so. Coincidentally, a week later, one of my clients was looking for a way to get his leadership team on the same page when it came to marketing and sales. So, I …
A Tale of Two Purchases: We — my wife and I — do not make large purchases very often. Recently, however, we found ourselves in the position of having to replace our two aging, high-mileage cars. And we had two very different experiences. One was salesperson-intensive. One was not. In both cases, we knew exactly what car, model, and accessory …
Capuchin Economics: M. Keith Chen (now at UCLA) studied the economic activity of Capuchin and Tamarin monkeys. What I find fascinating is that he first taught the monkeys how to use money (in this case, metal washers) to trade. It took a while, but they learned the value of money for trading. They learned to act mostly in their own …
Triggered: I admit it. I get triggered over this topic of selling. This site has several posts on how I believe technology and values have, and are, changing around the discipline of “selling.” And just for the record, I spent many years in B2B technical sales as well as marketing. I didn’t feel I was being evil back then. To …
Here’s the story. I was fixing our breakfast when my wife asked why I wasn’t using the microwave egg poaching device she had recently purchased as a gift for me. Well, frankly, I had forgotten about it and had strong reservations about its efficacy. So I wasn’t all that interested in trying it out. Maybe I was hoping she’d forgotten about …
Oxymoron “Wait,” you ask, “Are you suggesting that a person can’t be authentic and also sell?” Well, yes. And I’m not alone: “Of course, the idea of using authenticity to sell something is kind of self-contradictory and ironic, because the whole point of being authentic is not being strategic but instead behaving in a way consistent with true underlying identity …
Well, I suspect that the title got some emotional responses. I am sure to see many emails from my friends in sales. So I might as well get started. Sell: to deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain Betray – often used with out <sell out their country> (a) to give …