Goal setting for top-producing salespeople in the New Year

Happy New Year! Here’s to a healthy, prosperous and productive 2024 for you, your family and your team. If you’re reading this article, chances are you’re already a successful business owner, entrepreneur, manager or salesperson. Perhaps you’re coming off a great year and are determined to maintain that momentum. Or you’re establishing/revising your game plan

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Jim Marshall
The evolving role of the executive assistant

Depending who you ask, the term “executive assistant” can take on different meanings. For instance, like many of today’s traditional corporate roles, the EA position has greatly evolved, over the last few years. The EA is no longer a “politically correct” name for the “back-in-the-day secretary” whose primary focus, and function, was fetching coffee and

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Five Tips to Finish the Year Strong

As we enter the final month of the year, you may find yourself assessing what went well (or perhaps not so well) in your business over the past eleven months. You may have had a great year and decided to take your foot off the accelerator for the rest of the month or you’re engaging

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Jim Marshall
Ask the Experts: Unlocking Innovation

“Innovate or Die.” This challenge keeps many business leaders up at night. The reality of bringing big ideas to life is often more challenging than anticipated. Despite the best of intentions you may not get to the transformative, groundbreaking idea you were hoping for. Day-to-day responsibilities, the proverbial “firefighting,” not knowing where to start and

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Thank you, Mr./Ms. Prospect

It’s no secret that the dynamics of professional selling are changing, and ever-evolving, particularly with the proliferation of virtual selling, LinkedIn, social media, etc. What remains, however, is that selling is still a high-rejection business.   Where else can you go to work with the assurance that you’ll be turned down countless times, daily –

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Jim Marshall
The etiquette of being a (welcomed back) houseguest

Having houseguests can be flattering since they want to stay at your home and enjoy your space and company. But having houseguests can be relationship-strainers since some people want to use your home as a crash pad and treat it worse than a rental car on spring break. If you can relate to those houseguest

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Fourth and Goal: How are you on your sales numbers?

If you’re a football fan, we sincerely hope that your favorite team – National Football League, college, high school, etc. – is off to a good start to the season. Similarly, we also hope your year-to-date sales projections, revenue goals and business plans are on track to meet, or exceed, your expectations. But, if you

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Jim Marshall
Back to School: Reviewing your sales team’s skill set

By now, I’m guessing that your kids are in their classrooms (“Yay!”), the older ones have returned to campus and the digits on your credit cards are ground down to the nub after the back-to-school sales.  For students, it’s back to an environment of new experiences, new ideas and continuous learning, and development. But, as business

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Jim Marshall
The Business Case for DEI

Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, is not only a good thing to do, but also a highly valuable business strategy. While the subject can be sensitive, we should understand its value as a strategy. By leveraging the power of DEI, companies can reap numerous benefits that directly contribute to their overall performance and bottom

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The Etiquette of Trust, or the ‘ABCs’ 

Trust is much desired and, perhaps, missed, the safety and desire to work somewhere in a trusting environment ranks high on most people’s lists when it comes personal, and professional, relationships. Because of the intangibility of trust, it can seem illusive and in the etiquette of trust, there are three aspects, or actions, that are

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Great questions … (and when to ask them)

In working with thousands of sales professionals in hundreds of organizations through the years, our message to each of them has been simple, “You’re a consultant, so behave like one.” That means asking the right questions—then asking more questions—until you fully understand your buyer’s needs in achieving their desired outcome. A recently published Sandler white

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Jim Marshall
Is a DBA the new MBA? 

In the early 1900s, businesses were growing larger, and more complex, with more employees working in more varied divisions across more geographical boundaries. From this growth, demand for people who had training in managing business operations grew, which led to the creation, and demand, of the master of business administration degree. Today, knowledge is one

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