At the tender young age of whatever I am, I keep saying that "I'm not old enough yet to play golf". That somewhat "too cute" comment, especially at the age of whatever I am, is also just a bit too sarcastic even for me, so I've dropped that phrase in response to the frequent question, "Do you want to join us for golf this weekend?"
Tags: sales coach, sales planning, Sales quota, sales training
It doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat or a Republican; we are now faced with an interesting management problem.
Tags: Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, sales enablement, sales management training, sales leadership
...and
Tags: Tufts marketing projects, Tufts university, Tufts ELS program, Tufts Marketing
Over the years, maybe as a result of age, maybe due to my Peace Corps years living in Tanzania, or just maybe as a result of all of the stories about antibiotic superbugs in hospitals, I've been pretty careful about washing my hands. I mean, not compulsive-careful, but certainly I've become "highly aware" of the problem, and I never pass up a good buy at Home Depot for antibacterial soap or disinfecting Clorox wipes. Just good healthcare basics, plus I see, up close and personal every day, the debilitating affects of contracting hospital superbugs in my wife's Rheumatoid Arthritis, MRSA and auto-immune diseases which occurred as the result of a hospital-borne infection following a surgery 20 years ago.
Tags: sales effectiveness, sales enablement, Sales quota, improving sales productivity, sales forecasting
I've been roaming the sales cubicles of lots of companies most of last week and this. Probably 20 plus companies in 10 work days. Opening doors into the heads of heavy-hitter sales leaders along with young, hard working BDRs. Asking the tough questions of hard-charging, get-out-of-my-way 35 year olds and also to a few 55 year old trail-beaten veterans who still hang on to "the old days" of relationship selling.
Tags: sales, sales coach, sales tools, sales plans, sales process
The business plan pitches were Wednesday, and the awards were made last night. This year yet another company, Mimir Insights, with several of my marketing Alums won the top prize in High Tech. This is what real entrepreneurship...at the street level...is all about. Congratulations to all of the entrepreneurs!!!!
Tags: entreprenurial, business plans, Tufts university, marketing plans, entrepreneurship
Back in the day, you probably remember your mother warning you about making sure that you were wearing clean underwear "because if you're in an accident, and they bring you to the hospital, then, you want to make sure that you don't have dirty underwear". I must admit I didn't think about this a lot during my various ER experiences of broken bones after falling off my bike or crashing into trees while learning to snowboard. Actually, there never seemed to be any checklist at the ER asking about the health or even the cleanliness of my underwear.
Tags: sales coach, sales planning, sales tools, Sales quota, sales culture
Tags: sales, business planning, how to write a business plan, Tufts Marketing, marketing interns, marketing plans, how to write a marketing plan
My first real job out of BC, after returning from three years in the Peace Corps, was as a Purchasing Expediter working for Honeywell's new minicomputer group. In a work-hard, work-harder, baptism-by-fire-environment in which you either performed or were fired, I quickly learned the realities of purchasing, inventory control and production. A great education and a great company...even though they missed the whole mini-computer thing..which prepared me well for a long career at Becton Dickinson Medical Systems-another great company with solid management development programs allowing me to eventually rise through the ranks.
But, all through that development process with more and more training, and more and more education programs, the complexities of P&L's and balance sheets always eluded me, but since I had by then become president of various companies, I had the luxury of hiring the best CFOs at Datamedix (Bob Badavas, currently CEO of Plum Tree, is a superb example) who were much better in Finance than I would ever be.
Those experiences led me to adopt a simple axiom that I use today with all of the managers in all of our customers:
"Your job is to hire people who are much better than you in their own skills"
Today, although I believe I'm now pretty fluent in everything Finance, my three simple Finance rules that always guide me to success are...
Tags: sales management, sales coach, sales management coach, sales management training, Sales quota
Today's my birthday.
I was born at 10 minutes past midnight in Chicago's Cook County Hospital in a blue collar, South Side neighborhood of meat cutters and steelworkers and the home of my first generation Polish grandparents. Wonderful people and wonderful memories that I still remember today since they were most often wrapped around events surrounding birthdays, Catholic holy days, marriages and funerals. All of these events are for me indelibly marked through emotions, the rituals of the church, and, of course, being Polish, the smells and kitchen sounds of unbelievable food piled high on huge oaken dining room tables.
Tags: sales tools, Sales quota, sales plans, sales meeting
