Planning your summer vacation? It's Memorial Day Weekend and the unofficial start of summer. What are your plans? Have you decided where you are going to spend those days or weeks off? Maybe you've elected to take every Friday off between now and Labor Day so you can get long weekends in and do a …
preparation
Leadership Tip: Delegate problem solving
You are the leader, it is your problem, no one else's, right? Leadership involves calculating return on investment. Sometimes that means you take the 2nd best solution to a problem, not the first. Why would you do that? Stop being the Chief Problem Solver in your organization. Let the team …
Tips: Closing the Deal
Going into this meeting, you know you have this deal. You have been in this position 10 Time’s, and you have your script ready. Your preparation for that objection is beyond reproach. Just at the moment you were going to say something, the prospect throws a curve. Jose Valverde, Detroit Tigers …
Tips: How to be a salesperson, NOT an account manager
As a CEO or business owner, you wonder why Sales are not increasing. You have spent money on Sales Training, hired account managers, and review the metrics weekly. What are you missing? One of my functions is to gather information to provide my principals with some level of market intelligence. …
Erosion, is it eating away your organization?
The World loses 1% of its topsoil per year thru erosion alone. Although there are some forms of renewal, the erosion is 10x’s faster than the natural replacement. Without proper attention, and a growing population, it is possible that there won’t be enough farmland in the future to feed the …
Vision Precedes Preparation
"Leaders see more than others, and Leaders see before others" - John Maxwell often says. Regardless of what you are getting ready to do, you must have a vision before you start. Learning on the fly, faking it until you make it, just doesn't work anymore. If you are planning on leading an …
Characteristics of Leadership
If you want people to follow you, you need certain abilities. Your goal is to get you and the group from point A to point B. We can visualize this as a trip across a bridge. However, in order to make it over that bridge, and have people follow you, you must have certain characteristics. How do these …
Even a Jackass Can Teach You Something!
One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors …
What will you compare 2016 to?
Week 51 … almost at the end of what has been a very interesting 2016. If you are lucky and not living in the retail world your business year is winding down. Like most of you, I use this time to accomplish two things; the first being to compare my situation to last year, and the other is to …
How to Avoid that Slippery Slope!
For nearly two years now, we have watched candidate after candidate in this Presidential election cycle bash their competition. I am writing this even before tonight’s debate between two of the four leading candidates. I feel quite certain that neither one will win. In addition, we can be fairly …