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I enjoy watching The Apprentice. It's a great case study in human behavior. The players are in a business context where someone gets fired. The pressure of intense deadlines, shotgun creativity, and working with competitors brings out the best and worst in otherwise dignified and accomplished business people.
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If you want something, you tend to buy it these days. Our economy affords us convenience and luxury for most items. In the old days, we may have waited for Christmas to get our wishes. Today, we gratify desires and can buy whenever, wherever. If your buyer has access to
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If you sell me, I put up my defenses. If you help me, I open myself up. The ability to transcend your self interest is extremely difficult. Yet it lies at the heart of success. You are a buyer as well. You would react to the same bad tactics: cold
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We live in a fast moving economy. Change is constantly challenging us to reinvent ourselves. Who we do business with cannot be taken for granted. The threads which bind business relationships are built by trust and value. If your offering looks like parity to a buyer then your ability to
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It is not hard to find bad service in a given day. It is pretty commonplace and we have all experienced it. The epidemic seems to arise from a crucial part of our humanity - our inability to transcend ourselves and think of others. I had a funny experience at
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In the sales process, the approach is everything. The goal of the sales process is to get in front of the person who can say, "Yes." This is often the owner or an executive of a business. If the decision maker is not in the relevant conversation, then
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It is rare to find someone thinking. Sure, there are plenty of people who can react. That is the norm. Instead of depending on charisma and last minute work, what if you thought through a true selling process? What if you thought about what the ultimate buying experience could look
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The key about value perception is asking yourself whether you are valuable. If you are not valuable to your customer because: 1. You don't care about their problems 2. You only care about how you make money 3. You don't understand what the real problem is
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There was a telling comment made a few years ago by famed NBA basketball star, Allen Iverson. He revealed his perspective about practice, “We’re talking about practice man, we’re not even talking about the game, when it actually matters, we’re talking about practice.” At that time, Iverson
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It is really difficult to meet someone who has had a linear, planned out, perfect life, much less a predictable planned week. The number of variables to manage are too vast. The accident you did not plan for happened. The new competitor who got to market faster was not on