Let’s start with something nobody wants to say out loud: some of your “best” customers are your worst problem. You know the ones I’m talking about — the ones who have been with you forever, who “supported you from the beginning,” who “know how you work,” and who, if you’re honest, treat you like an […]

Oh Man, I get so tired of the excuses. It seems like people, especially salespeople, look for every excuse under the sun to explain why they cannot do their job. I’ve been around this industry long enough to hear just about every excuse in the book. Tariffs. Supply chain snarls. Material shortages. Labor walkouts. Late […]

You have to earn loyalty every day with every delivery  By Dan Beaulieu Let’s cut through the fairy tale. Your customers are not loyal. They never were. They are loyal only until the next late delivery, the next missed deadline, the next quality failure. Loyalty in business is as fragile as glass—and it will shatter […]

There’s a dangerous myth floating around in business today: that the keyboard is mightier than the phone. That if you blast enough cold emails, send enough LinkedIn connection requests, and fire off enough proposals by PDF, customers will eventually roll over and buy from you. Let me set the record straight: cold emails don’t close […]

Every time the market hiccups, every time the industry cycle dips, I hear the same tired chorus: “The market is down. Customers aren’t buying. What can we do? We just have to wait it out.” Nonsense. The market doesn’t owe you a thing. Never has, never will. If you think that by showing up, opening […]

Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: remote selling isn’t a temporary inconvenience. It’s not a “phase” that’s going to magically disappear if you just hold your breath long enough. It’s the new normal. It’s the new playing field. And if you want to win, you better start learning how to hit […]

Let me tell you something that most salespeople — even the ones flashing Rolexes and bragging about crushing their quotas — still haven’t figured out: facts don’t close deals. Stories do. You can walk into a meeting loaded for bear — binders full of data, PowerPoints thicker than a New York phone book, rattling off […]

Let’s get something straight right out of the gate: Cold calling isn’t dead. I don’t care what the LinkedIn gurus or the TikTok “sales coaches” say. Picking up the phone and talking to another human being is still one of the fastest ways to grow your business. But (And it’s a big but.) Cold calling […]

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further: AI isn’t here to replace you. It’s here to make you smarter and faster. I know, I know. Every time a new tool shows up, half the sales floor panics like the sky is falling. “They’re going to automate us out of a job!” they […]

Come on, I get it! Customer retention is not glamorous. It doesn’t have a flashy ad campaign. It’s not going viral on social media. And nobody’s handing out “Best in Retention” awards at trade shows. But if you’re running a real business — not a popularity contest — then customer retention is where your real […]