Negotiating in B2B: Establishing a "Sound Basis" Consider this for a moment: You get in line at your local coffee shop. When it's time to commit and pay, would you inform the attendant that you have a budget constraint and need a discount to proceed? Or, when...

It was twenty-five years ago this spring. The dot-com bubble was bursting, but nobody knew it yet. After a successful run at SAP in the late 1990s, I, along with a few of my SAP buds, all chased money, taking wildly overpaid sales jobs at an overfunded procurement...

Four Myths of How The Sales Profession Has Changed Can we dispel some myths about how sales has changed so much? Here are four of those myths. Let’s see how far back we go… Myth 1: Buyers know more nowadays “Buyers know more nowadays.” - Thomas Herbert Russell,...

Best Advice For The Newly Independent (Or Those Considering It) Considering ever going out on your own? Seven years ago today, I received the most impactful piece of advice I received as I did. I was in downtown Chicago. I had just informed my CEO of my plans to leave...

Selling With Purpose - Selling During World War I When we do anything with purpose, we tend to do it better. We find another gear. We’re more precise. We bring more enthusiasm and energy to the task at hand.  Whether or not you are a fan of ice hockey, in February of...

The Tendency Toward Better Salesmen Below is a selection of paragraphs from an article I found in the March 1921 edition of Specialty Salesman Magazine by Edgar J. Mills. Here's the TL:DR: As a sales profession, we are reliving the 1920s right now. We have relived the...

Arthur Sheldon: A City and Lake Named After a Sales Philosophy Yes. This happened: Imagine developing a sales philosophy you love. Then, you buy 800 acres of land, incorporate it as its own city, and name the city after the philosophy. Then, you dam a lake on the...

The Sales Profession Has Not Changed Years ago, I entered the sales profession in what many would deem to be “dramatically” different from its current state.  I wore a suit daily - one of the two I could afford. I was given a company car - a baby blue Chevy Corsica we...

Combatting Misinformation in Sales “This whole idea of traveling via locomotive is silly. Everyone knows that when the human body reaches a speed of 30 miles-per-hour, blood circulation will stop.”. This was a commonly held truth in the early 1800s. If you were...