Featured Articles
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Becoming A More Empathetic Listener
4/29/2024
B2B sales experts regularly speak of empathy as an important trait for B2B sales professionals, perhaps the most important trait. It is the gateway for sellers to build meaningful trust with prospects and customers. There are tons of information, tips, and best practices on how to project empathy, but they miss the point. Our goal as B2B salespeople is to be empathetic, not just display.
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Pushing A B2B Buyer Through A Funnel With Product And Service Explanations Doesn’t Result In Sales!
4/22/2024
Yes, you read that right. B2B solution providers, and me for many years, spoke about pushing prospects through a sales funnel with persuading messages about our products and services. But that doesn’t work. Sure, sales will come in, but this creates a false understanding of how buyers make purchasing decisions, and we end up with a false sense of confidence in our own persuasive skills.
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How Do You Describe Your Brand’s Soul?
4/15/2024
The time I received an email from Howard Schultz while working in a coffee shop.
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IT’S TOO LOUD IN HERE!
4/8/2024
The internet is a noisy place. Imagine if each piece of content was a rock band playing simultaneously but not in synch, and not even the same song. Our online scrolling would deliver just a lot of loud noise. Well, that’s what it is! Not audible noise, but mental noise and some of us are contributing to it.
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Celebrate All The Wins!
4/5/2024
There is only one winner in a basketball game, but each game is packed with scoring and what seems like a continuous celebration of incremental wins. Teams celebrate baskets, 3-pointers, slam dunks, foul shots, blocked shots, steals, turn-overs, disrupted plays and more. The over 100 points scored per game offers a lot of opportunities to celebrate. It keeps the energy level high and provides the fuel needed to play hard the entire game. Do you do the same?
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Nurture Your Inner Malcontent!
3/24/2024
We all have a bit of malcontent in us, not a bad thing, and tapping into that inner self can be valuable.
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You Nailed It!
3/18/2024
Have you ever heard the saying, if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem (or opportunity) as a nail? It was made famous by Abraham Maslow, yes, the same Maslow that gave us the hierarchy of needs and it refers to being over reliant on a familiar tool. It has many applications in life and business.
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How's Your Interoperability Between Marketing And Sales?
3/11/2024
The common goal of B2B sales and marketing is revenue generation, but the painful truth is that the lack of a seamless flow of actionable information between marketing and sales is more common than we wish to recognize, and it is killing our businesses.
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Does Your Reach Exceed Your Grasp?
3/11/2024
Continuous improvement is a model embraced by business, sports teams, athletes, and those who are fitness minded. You may have heard the mantra, “no pain, no gain”. However, not all pain leads to gain and not all gain requires pain. But on a personal level, continuous self-improvement requires us to step outside our comfort zone. For some, that can be painful, although it doesn’t have to be. It simply requires the right mindset.
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Avoiding Rbbit Holes!
3/4/2024
Last week's thought was about the value of operating at a pace in both work and leisure that enables one’s senses to experience things that would otherwise go unnoticed and unlearned. A good companion concept is avoiding rabbit holes, “ooh shiny” attractions that pull us off track and often waste time. And extricating ourselves from rabbit holes is challenging. Go ask Alice!