Like a bear taking a long Winter’s nap, it’s common that a deal goes into its own version of hibernation. At first the buyer seems ready to buy, creating hope for the salesperson. Then, a shift in priorities puts the sale on hold for weeks, months, or even years. Even the very best, most experienced salespeople can’t avert this from happening at least some of the time.

Managing the sales process once a deal goes into hibernation is one of those advanced sales skills whose mastery…

Five security lines and only one of them open to the long queue of passengers. TSA staff standing around laughing and joking. It’s no joke that that this was the scene at Airside C at Tampa International Airport this morning.

Congratulations to the Transportation Security Administration and their team in Tampa. Your status of Radical Accountability Zero has been well earned.

—–

This segment features companies, organizations, industries, and even individuals who exemplify…

There lives a powerful band of monkeys, and they are out to harm you. When you feed them, they become even stronger, rattling the bars of their cage, causing a distracting clatter. As they become more and more out of control they throw…

Is your company the next Starbucks or trending towards Polaroid-like demise? Answer the following questions to find out:

1. Are the revenues from any one customer more than 10% of your total revenues?
2. Are your gross…

There’s nothing wrong with being nice, and it’s a huge asset in most situations. Building relationships with customers and forging new ones with prospects requires some degree of niceness or the ability to fake nice really well. And I believe that most people aren’t faking.

Being a nice person becomes a liability for leaders when they engage in Employee Neglect, the workplace equivalent of child neglect. Employee Neglect occurs when…

There’s a love affair going on and it’s wrecking relationships. No, I’m not referring to the extracurricular personal activities in workplaces around the globe; I am calling out the leaders and staff who are smitten with supposed best practices that are anything but.

All too often things keep being done the same way because that’s how they’ve always been done. In other cases, people are using a method because they were told this is how most…

Fans were surely pleased, engaged, and even surprised during the Super Bowl. I refer not to the game itself, which was a stunning upset, but the much anticipated commercials. Millions of tweets, texts, emails, and Snapchats provided an ongoing commentary on these carefully crafted sales pitches. All this excitement focused on companies wanting us to part with our money in trade for their products and services. Shows what a compelling approach can do to create a buzz, name recognition, and…