Getting yourself wanted: the original Challenger Sale? In 1907, Norval Hawkins was doing some accounting work for the Ford Motor Company. He wanted to run the sales organization. He was confident. “I believed myself fitted for the position.” How would an accountant...

How Sales Hasn't Changed - And Probably Should! “He who plans no further than the present is mentally blind. He who plans for a year ahead is a general. He who plans for a lifetime is a genius. He whose mental vision extends beyond his life and plans for...

Why Automatic Price Increases in SaaS are a Bad Idea I’d like to think that not much upsets me…but there is one B2B practice that does. I was reminded of it twice this week… When did we begin to believe that including automatic annual price increases in contracts...

Question Tradition: The Sales Scoreboard Reset It's that time of year again...when we embark on the unquestioned tradition of resetting the scoreboard for all of our revenue-responsible team members. Well, I’m here to question it…in another case of something sales...

Building Personal Values - Ten Mottos To Be Your Best You As we usher in the new year, advice abounds about how to make this year the best one yet. Instead of recreating the wheel on these ideas, let’s turn the clock back 87 years. In 1937, Paul W. Ivey released a...

Sales History: The Wage Stabilization Board and Sales Compensation Can you imagine living in a time when the government was involved in determining sales compensation and seeking ways to limit it? It happened...and people seemed, for the most part, ok with it. An...

Why does sales exist the way it does? Despite knowing I could ask Todd Caponi for a sales history lesson, I keep asking myself this question. Why? This morning, Justin Clifford posted this question above on LinkedIn and I love it. My answer? Well, I started writing...

Sales Prospecting Fundamentals - From Sales History How often have you heard how many touches it takes to reach a new prospect? How often have you heard that cold calling is interruptive? How often have you heard that surface-level objections hide the true...

Sales Leadership: Why Celebrating Losses Wins! “Celebrate the losses!” A few months back, I was keynoting a revenue leadership summit for one of the largest technology companies on the planet. I said those three words...celebrate-the-losses. One leader immediately...