I was about to jump… but the 50-foot drop to the rocks below caused me to pause. “Just step out to the edge and jump away from the edge.” My zip-line guide made it sound so simple. I’d just seen 6 others do it and walk away without a scratch, but now it was my […]
Nobody answers their phone anymore and they never return a cold call voice mail! Right? I’d beg to differ. iSpeak has been using outbound calling for almost 15 years now and we still see positive results. Much of what I share below was learned from Dara, our Sr. Sales Consultant. She’s the highest caliber professional in […]
The executive sat there staring at me while I thought about his question. I didn’t have an answer. His question was about the financial structure of our deal. I didn’t see any problem with structuring the payments by his request, but I didn’t have the authority to make that call. I’d have to run this […]
I’ve always loved the wisdom found in a short statement. In keynote speaker terms, we call these “sticky statements.” If you’re speaking to an audience and you make a statement that causes everyone to write it down, you just gave them a sticky statement. As we’ve brought the first quarter of 2018 to a close […]
I was driving and listening to the radio (KLOVE) when a song by Mercy Me started. It gripped me from the opening line. “Dear younger me, where do I start?…” The song itself is powerful and it made a lasting impression on me because it made me think. I’m 30 years out of high school […]
It’s Wednesday and I’m in St. Louis getting some work done in my hotel room before I speak this afternoon for my customer. When I opened my Blogging Dashboard I noticed something… this is my 100th weekly blog post. That’s two years, almost 100,000 words, and the equivalent of two published books. I paused for […]
We were presenting our quarterly sales updates to our executives and most of us were not looking forward to it. No matter how well your quarterly numbers were, it always seemed like an interrogation. Afterwards I felt like one salesperson got off easy because he didn’t get any tough questions. Later I found out from […]
This week I finished a book on my flight back from Seattle. The Like Switch is by retired FBI Agent Dr. Jack Schafer. I love reading about people who use communication skills to navigate tense situations. I can’t think of a more tense situation than international espionage! Dr. Schafer shared tactics used by the FBI to gain […]
Last week we looked at the 7 Deadly Sins in Conversations. Rather than just avoiding those 7 to be a better conversationalist, we’ll look at the 5 virtues of outstanding conversationalists. If we can all focus on these 5 when we’re blessed by someone else’s company, the relationship will prosper because of it. Just as […]
First of all, please hear me, I’m no saint and I know it. What you’re about to read in this article, I’m guilty of them all and I know it. But one thing I also know about me… I’m an observer. It’s what I do. It’s what I get paid to do! I’m a professional […]
