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2020The Price I Paid for Not Listening
…our job was much more about listening than it was speaking.
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2019Listening: The Successful Leader’s Magic Bullet
I still remember the night. It was in the early morning hours, probably around 3:00 a.m., in August 1974. I was involved in the Nashville record scene and had received word that Elvis was in town for one of his clandestine middle-of-the-night recording sessions. So I slipped by RCA Studio B and arranged to be there when Elvis ended the session. As he walked out,…
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2019The Myth of the 40-Hour Work Week
In the 1930’s the United States government told us a lie. They told us that if we were working 40 hours per week…we were fully employed. Wow. That was interesting! Historically, a typical workweek included 12-hour days, six days a week. There are 168 hours in a week. I personally can tell you that you can work more than 40 of them. As a matter…
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2019The 3 Stages of a Salesperson’s Career
An old sage once remarked, “A mind once stretched by a new idea will never return to its original dimension.” I don’t expect you to necessarily agree with every assumption, comment, or strategy I share. That’s okay. My simple hope is that you will find a few golden nuggets that will revolutionize your selling career. To begin, selling is about much more than getting appointments,…
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2019People Buy Stuff from Likeable People
At its core, selling is communication and persuasion. To accomplish this, we must be likeable people. This means that you don’t have the luxury of bringing your problems to work with you. When you arrive at work, everything else goes away. You put on your game face. You focus on your customers and clients. Your only reason for existence is to serve…not to be served….
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2019Mentor Characteristics Enhance Great Leadership
Which type of leader are you? As I discussed in my book, ReTooled & ReFueled, there are essentially two leadership models. The first is power-driven leadership. This is where a person with power leads through fear and intimidation. At its worst, this is a slave master who abuses a slave. More often today, it’s a boss who is more focused on his own career than…
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2019Counterintuitive…Become a Long-term Success
FACT: Successful Leadership is a most counterintuitive commodity. It was in late 1981, the country still in a deep economic recession, that I first noticed a forlorn-looking office building on Nashville’s world famous Music Row. Our business was still young, and so was I—just 29. Money was tight. But, at a glance, I saw what could be done with this property. So, I inquired and…
4
2018Why Salespeople Struggle with Their Income
Over the last 16 years I’ve spoken to audiences hundreds of times on the topic of personal finance in my No Debt No Sweat Money Management Seminar™. I’ve written scores of articles on the topic and the No Debt No Sweat™ book has been a big seller. So it’s fair to say that I’ve got a real interest (and some experience) in the area of…
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2018Long-term Focus…What Life Has Taught Me About Leadership Success
One of the most important lessons in success that I’ve learned is the need to focus on the long-term rather than the short term. Every failure in my life has been because of short-term thinking. This may be true for you, too. It is for most people. But, a person might say, “No, that business failed because its biggest client pulled out.” Yes, that may…
5
2018Want to Resolve a Conflict? Here are 4 Things Not to Do:
The only thing worse than a conflict is an even worse conflict. Here are four ideas from my bestseller, ReTooled & ReFueled, which you might find helpful. 1. Picking the wrong time and place. Little good is accomplished when we are tired, stressed, ill, or focused on too many other issues. Sometimes the best thing to do is schedule an exact time for discussing a…