Acronyms: Should your sales staff START or STOP using them when selling?

Years ago, when I was selling insurance, I was explaining to a prospect about a particular feature of her coverage and I referred to that feature by an acronym rather than by the full name. The prospect totally called me out on it with a rather harsh “I’m not IN the industry so I don’t […]

Fall in love with ‘no’ — Follow-up post

Recently, I wrote a post about why business owners and sales people (and especially financial advisors) should fall in love with no. You should go read the post but, to summarize, I suggested that “no” isn’t as bad as we tend to make it out to be and a bunch of “no’s” are just part […]

Improve your copywriting with Oren Klaff’s ‘Pitch Anything’

I’m in the middle of reading the book Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. It’s a great book! Klaff has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture cap money during his career. Not surprisingly, he has honed his presentation skills into a science and in this book, he shares that science with his readers. As […]

100 small business strategy questions

Many small businesses are fueled by passion. They start because an entrepreneur has an idea (or is sick of working for a boss), they grow because their ideas solve a problem and somehow that solution is communicated to the marketplace. Unfortunately, many small businesses fail… even ones that are seemingly successful and make profitable sales. […]