The great companies always pay attention to detail. I have read numerous times that Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives would spend hours working on the boxes their products came in. They would hold the cover of an I-Pod box over the bottom of the box and just drop it seeing how long and how elegantly […]
How Great Leaders Find Great People
There is an old saying that goes if you want someone to climb a tree don’t hire a horse, hire a squirrel. Kind of an inelegant quote but you get the message. To prepare for this column, the third in the series on leadership, I again looked through my library of business books to see […]
Real Leaders Care
Continuing our series about leadership this week. I went to my library to find a book about leadership. Perusing one of those books I came across this. I read a story about General Earl Hailston, the commanding general of Marine Forces Central Command. The general was interviewed while he and his troops were a few […]
Doing The Right Things In Tough Times
More people than ever are calling me for advice on how to spend their days. Frankly pre-Covid I would have been put off by this question. Really, a salesperson asking how she should spend her days? I would have thought she could have figured that out by now. But now, well, these are not normal […]
Tom Brady’s Great Leadership Tips
Okay, for those of you who hate Tom Brady, hold your nose, because we’re going to talk about him in this column. Not so much Tom Brady the Patriot, or the Buc, but Tom Brady the paragon of leadership. I just read this new book titled 12 Lessons in Business Leadership from The Championship Career […]
The New Era of Rep Partnerships
For years one of the most difficult relationships in business has been the one between an independent sales representative and the principal, the company she is selling for. This relationship has been tenuous at best and adversarial at worst. In fact, most of the time it has been adversarial. The principal’s constantly resenting the money […]
Looking Into The Future
Have you thought about this autonomous vehicle thing? I mean really done some deep thinking about what it will mean to all of us, how it will change the world in ways we have not even thought of yet? Here is some insight into what is called “Level 5 of autonomy” and what that will […]
Salesperson: Brand Thyself
It’s a new day out there. For years we have been urging companies to brand themselves, to establish their own brand identity that will make them stand out from the rest of the pack. But now it’s time for individuals to brand themselves, especially salespeople. Whether you are an independent sales representative working for yourself, […]
Leadership Secrets From The Old Man Himself
That’s right, even Santa Claus has his own book of leadership secrets. We’ve heard from everyone from Jesus, to Churchill, from the Roosevelts Teddy and Franklin and to the whole gang of bad guys in my friend Steve William’s great book Notorious. And now Santa himself has entered the leadership arena with a book of […]
Sales Leaders: Are You Ready For The Future?
Besides all of the hardship that we have faced this year, there will come many changes in the way we do business. One of the most drastic changes will be the way sales leaders, sales managers, directors, and vice presidents are going to have to adapt if they want to be successful in managing […]