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

I was talking to friend recently and she explained how although she enjoyed her job and was working in the field she desired, one aspect was a sore spot: her micro manager.   Everyday her manager hovered over her shoulder, seeing what she was working on and ensuring she was doing work “correctly. ” This manager was constantly looking over her shoulder, critiquing this and that, and it was starting to take its toll on my friend. View Details

You aced the interview, your résumé sings, but in the end, you didn't get the job. Chances are, you'll never know why.   It is a painful conundrum of the job search process: Rejected candidates want to understand why they didn't get hired, but employers, fearing discrimination complaints, keep silent. And those who do speak up offer little more than platitudes. View Details

How many hours will you spend in meetings today? This week? This month? For many of us, the sum total can be scary.   While group communication is critical in any organization, unproductive meetings can create a spiral of frustration and inefficiency. In the extreme cases, poor meeting management can decrease moral and result in finger pointing, backstabbing and an ocean of excuses for past misses instead of explanations and strategies for the future. View Details

A good friend of mine had a mission: to find a new job. Sounds like most people, right? Well, he was employed at a Fortune 500 company, very close with his boss and other team members, and actually a big asset to his department—but culture wise, it just wasn’t the right fit.   Now do you see his previous dilemma? View Details

We’ve written before that happy, engaged workers are critical to company success. The opposite is true for those that are disaffected. But since many workers aren’t willing to complain, you may need to watch for warnings of disengagement. View Details

We know that a job interview is a lot like a date--and like that other courting process, initial excitement can wear off quickly.   But how can you know if you've arrested your career development? View Details

Presentations are more persuasive when they touch both mind and heart at multiple levels.   The point of a presentation is to convince decision-makers to make a public commitment to whatever you're selling, according to G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa, co-authors of the excellent book The Art of Woo. Here's how:  1. Make it vivid. View Details

Ever considered lying at a job interview? Well, don’t! Sure, a career making-or-breaking interview may be the one occasion when you need to hard-sell your skills and experience, but there is a big difference between positive exaggeration and unscrupulous embellishment. If anything, lying at a job interview is a sure way to court disaster:  Just positive portrayal? At job interviews, absolutely everybody gives an overly idealized view of themselves. View Details

I love playoff hockey. I especially love it when the Bruins are winning. As the Bruins continue through another series against the Penguins, you can easily see their sense of urgency – and it always begins right at game one of each series.   A sense of urgency is something that athletes possess; it’s definitely something inside sales reps need to possess as well. View Details

Our current climate is characterized by: radical change, new technologies, a multi-generational workplace, globalization and the rise of the BRIC economies, which have all led to extraordinary levels of competition in the consumer, commercial and candidate marketplace.   These forces are placing significant and varied demands on workers and professionals, and to thrive, survive, and deliver within the workplace, professionals must evolve and develop new skills and qualities. View Details