It’s easy to cater to the customer who yells the loudest or the employee who complains the most. It’s much harder to be more strategic with our efforts. If we don’t control our own attention, others will do it for us. That’s why customers make a scene – they’ve been rewarded for their outlandish actions …
Blog Archive
Selling for good?
The world is full of what I would consider negative marketing. This includes ads for unhealthy food, addictive behaviors, and other hedonistic pursuits; as well as scam-artists selling faulty products. This negative marketing casts a dark shadow on sales and marketing, which is partly why it took a while before I became comfortable selling. It …
The Idiot Lane
There’s a spot near my work where two lanes turn left. It was designed this way to relieve a bottleneck. Almost everyone who turns there makes the same next turn across a busy road, so the second lane provides an additional queue so more cars get through the intersection in little time. But it doesn’t …
The Must-do List for Guaranteed Success
Here are a few things that I’ve been told “must” be done to be happy & successful. Sleep 8 hours per day Don’t sleep more than 6 hours Avoid meat Center your diet around red meat Lift heavy weights Avoid exerting too much effort Specialize in one thing Be well-rounded Neatly separate work and personal …
Sales or Engineering?
The Engineering team focuses on product. They deal with rational, tangible challenges and they create offerings to address these challenges. Sales, on the other hand, has their ear towards the customer. They don’t care about how fast something is or how many features it has. They want something that their customers want to buy. Often, …
Negative Feedback
Negative feedback can be tough to deal with it. We often ignore our flaws and take it personally when others point them out. Even though we need to understand our weaknesses to truly understand how we can bring value, we miss this opportunity because we put up a defense. I recently heard a quote from …
Simple Answers
We ramble when we have something to hide. If we knew the answer, we could just give it. But when we don’t quite have a firm grasp, we just talk. We fill the silence with words, whether they’re relevant or not. Simple answers, on the other hand, take courage. They require us to be transparent. …
Seeing the Future
When making bets on the future, we can play it safe. We can wait until we have enough information to make an informed decision before we move. The risk is low. It’s unlikely that we’ll stick our neck out too far and get burnt. But the potential upside is similarly low. If we wait for …
First Impressions
It doesn’t take long to sense what type of energy someone is taking into the New Year. There’s the person who sleeps in, staggers into work still groggy from the holiday weight, and eases into things. And there’s the person who gets up extra early and seizes the day, determined to make this year better …
Falling
Would you rather fall 100 times from a height of 1 foot or once from a height of 100 feet? Obviously the shorter fall is the better option. From 1 foot, you can easily land on your feet and prevent any damage. The quantity doesn’t matter. Not so in the other scenario. Even though it …