Yes, sales managers have to visit customers. In fact General Managers and Presidents and Quality Managers and yes, even owners need to visit customers whenever they get the opportunity. Why are we happy to just sit back and have our sales people do customer translations for us? Why are we happy or often unhappy with […]
Be Curious. Hire Curious People
Albert Einstein once said that being curious is much more important than being smart. If you’re curious about something you are going to spend a lot of time and effort finding out everything you can about it. You are going to focus as much as you can on that subject. You are going to read […]
Create A Simple Plan And Just Be Tenacious
It’s amazing how much can get done when you decide to stick with it Another year another strategic plan…or worse yet another month another strategic plan. Does this sound familiar to you? Well it does to me. The most difficult thing to do when you’re a strategic consultant like I am is to make sure […]
Where Did All The PCB Salespeople Go?
Where are all the PCB salespeople? A few years ago there were all kinds of sales people on the street. Good sales people; seasoned veterans with proven track records who had been victimized by first the stream of mergers that left them high and dry when the conquering company went with their sales force and […]
Don’t Be Afraid, Have Courage!
They say that courage is the number one quality of all successful companies. You have to have courage to get anything done. Because it is a big scary world out there and if you don’t have the guts, think courage, to face it you will not survive. The more I work with companies the more […]
Putting Together Your Team
What do the Boston Red Sox, The New England Patriots, and the Chicago Cubs all have in common? Besides all being winners (and my three favorite teams) they have won by building teams synergistically. By that I mean they build teams by putting the team in front of individual players that way making the team […]
Let’s Talk Leadership
Do you ever sit back and wonder what kind of leader you are? Are the people who work for you inspired by you or are they there with you because you are the only game in town? Would they stay with you if another very similar company opened up across the street? Think about that, […]
We Have To Work Together Or Else!
Two shopkeepers were bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend each day keeping track of each other’s business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival. One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, […]
Selling Value Is Always Valuable
Looking at the title of this column, you might be saying to yourself, “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” but stop and think for a minute. What can you offer that goes way beyond the product itself? What can you offer that will get your customer thinking beyond price issues? What do you have to offer that […]
5 Things We Should Be Doing And Aren’t
Dare to be great We are all so busy running our businesses that we seldom have time to do what really needs to be done to move our businesses forward, to take them from “good to great” to use that old but true cliché. I know that all of my friends who own board shops […]