I pushed too hard the other day. Or did I? I was trying to get Janis, a relatively new financial services representative who works at a branch of a large insurance company, to take the last available seat in my workshop program. I had offered her help with the tuition, and she had committed on…
“I know it’s crazy,” exclaimed Barry, a young financial advisor in New Jersey, while on the phone with me. “I want to be in this business and I want to be successful, but I can’t bring myself to make the phone calls I need to make—and if I don’t, obviously, none of that will happen.”
In his recent Harvard Business Review article, “The End of Solutions Sales,” Matt Dixon reported the results of a study of 20,000 salespeople around the world. The study grouped salespeople into five distinct profiles: 1. Challengers: These are salespeople with a provocative point of view that they’re not afraid to share with a customer. They
Early in his coaching career, my friend and fellow coach, Jason Westlake, took six executives deep into the Amazon for an unforgettable coaching/jungle experience. He spent several weeks before the group arrived working with scientists in a remote area that has been barely touched by civilization. Here’s how he described his first night there: I
“I don’t want to cold call,” Robert, a financial advisor in Michigan who I’ve been working with, began. “But I don’t know how to fill my time.” We were discussing Robert’s second career, which he has told me that he loves, but for which he just hasn’t been finding enough clients. “Let’s start with the
Throughout my years as a coach and sales trainer, I’ve noticed a sad but interesting phenomenon: Professionals sometimes fail on purpose. A few years ago, I asked a group of coaches who were attending the event at which I was speaking how many of them were there because they needed more clients. All 47 of
