Your boss hates you: 7 questions.   1) What's the evidence?   A former CEO of Sunbeam used to throw orange juice containers at his subordinates.   But it wasn't personal. That was just him.   Compare notes with your colleagues. Possible good news: your manager doesn't hate you, she hates everyone.   2) Has the relationship changed?   Maybe your boss used to give you considerable autonomy but now second-guesses everything. View Details

There are four reasons that customers switch vendors. Here's how to make those reasons irrelevant.   When customers leave for other vendors, it's always your fault.   Therefore, you'd best understand why they leave and what you must do to keep your existing customers loyal.   Here's why they leave and what you can do to prevent it.   1. The competition undercut your price.   This only happens if you allow your product or service is easily replaced. View Details

You’ve hunted, posted, sent resumes and now you’ve gotten the call for an interview. Being prepared means more than a new suit and shoe shine. Body language is one of the most overlooked tools in our arsenal. You can say a lot with your actions, eyes and body. Fifty-five percent of messages processed by the brain are based on a person’s body language. View Details

In a time when recruiters and hiring managers are getting inundated with applicants for job postings, one technique they quickly learn to master is the art of "skimming" resumes. They just don't have time to read each resume word-for-word. Instead, they glance at it quickly and look for key info. If they don't see what they need, you're tossed. View Details

In a recent blog we discussed what it means to keep a customer’s loyalty. But how do you do that? There are some things as sales professionals that we can do to increase customer satisfaction.   When it comes to customer service, there are certain principles that need to be followed when working with clients. With these 6 principles, sales professionals can improve their customer relationships and increase success of retaining clients. View Details

What’s the one thing (besides money) most people wish they had more of? Time. Most people I know feel like there just aren’t enough hours in one day to accomplish all their daily goals and requirements. And this ranges across most areas, from work to home life. View Details

In problem solving terms, the rule is when you are confused about the next course of action you always start with, “How did we get here? ” As we look at sales forces all over the world, we see problems like:  * Closing percentages are low* Difficulty finding and getting in touch with buyers* Every part of the sales process gets commoditized* The sales process lasts way too long. View Details

As more and more potential employers embrace the idea of remote job interviewing techniques, phone interviews are becoming more and more prevalent. At first sound, “we’ll be interviewing you over the phone instead of in person” might be music to a job seeker’s ears—and with good reason.   After all, you won’t have to stress over putting together the perfect outfit for your interviewer. View Details

No matter how passionate you feel about the position you are applying for, or how much you want a job, the topic of salary is going to be an important aspect of the hiring process. View Details

One of the key aspects of a negotiation is that both parties leave feeling that they got what they wanted. The hardest aspect of the negotiation is to actually achieve that as there is always a fine line that needs to be found early. How do you find it early? You start the negotiation early. View Details

Effective leadership requires verbal discipline.  Leaders need to care about and practice the quality, specificity, and power of their language.   Not enough of them do.  Communication is particularly crucial to entrepreneurs. A founder’s individual vision and presence is vital to his or her organization’s sense of itself and its direction.   There are several ways a leader can immediately improve his or her language and communication. View Details

Last Friday afternoon as the day was winding down, I got into a discussion with some of our top performing Business Development Reps. I asked them, “What was your biggest challenge this week when making your dials? ” One of them immediately answered, “Admins! ” This got me thinking about how difficult it really is to get through administrative assistants and other gatekeepers. View Details

Phone calls. We all have important ones and want to maximize the impact, which can be hard to do when you aren't face-to-face.   Many first-time entrepreneurs have grown up digital natives so have a really good intuitive feel for technology & design but don't yet have the business basics down.   This shows itself when people try to do an elevator pitch, send concise, actionable emails or have a quick phone call with you to ask for help. View Details

If you want to close more sales, you better first do something about these 8 reasons your customers don’t care:  1. Why should they care about you when you don’t care about them?   Don’t even try faking it. If you do try to fake that you care, your customer will throw you out even faster.   Successful salespeople care about their customers.   2. View Details

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA.   This post is about the “P” or pain.   The point of PUCCKA was to develop a common methodology to make sure our whole team approaches sales with the same mindset and to give us a language to talk with each other about our prospects, as in, “have you identified your customers pain point yet? View Details