It’s human nature and business nature to want to over-deliver and exceed your customers’ expectations in terms of product value and service value.  In many instances, it’s the survival instinct kicking in where you are fearful that if you don’t over-deliver you could lose the customer to a competitor and then you’ll go out of business, go on unemployment, become homeless, and wither away into obscurity.  Obviously, that’s a little drastic and as radical as that sounds, I’ve seen many sales professionals and many businesses behave this way.

And of course, we behave this way because “smart” customers know which buttons to push to increase our anxiety and make us do whatever it takes to “make them happy.” And then there are the customers who aren’t really trying to manipulate the system or take advantage of vendors, but simply wake up every day with filet mignon tastes but only have Filet O’Fish budgets (nothing against delicious Filet O’Fish sandwiches or our dear clients at #McDonalds)!

Read More >

Every year around this time, thousands of so-called experts publish their predictions about the upcoming year.  Since I have yet to meet anyone with mystical powers nor visitors from the future (well at least I don’t think I have), the ideas and predictions of my annual blog predicting trends for the upcoming year are as valid as anyone else’s. Except, I’d like to think the 235,000+ miles traveled, the 42 difference global clients I’ve worked with, the research I’ve conducted, and the observations I’ve made working with thousands of business leaders and sales professionals provides a practical perspective that others can’t match. But who knows?  Let’s revisit this next December.

Read More >

Starting today, millions of us in the global workforce will begin a well-deserved holiday break.  Because Christmas and New Years both fall on Wednesday this year, many people are going to be able to take two weeks off returning the second week of January, 2020.  While this may be a great time to catch up with family, go on holiday, or binge watch that TV show you’ve been putting off for the last few months, your Business Acumen can get flabby and lazy very quickly.

Read More >

One of life’s greatest pleasures is learning new things.  In the chaos of today’s business world, we are deluged by infinite gigs of information, ideas, emails, books, articles, and new concepts… 24/7. It’s hard to judge what’s good and what’s not, which is why I trust my colleague from Singapore who I co-delivered a powerful GROW Coaching business simulation program with this week in China.

Read More >

One of the many amazing impacts that come from the current strength of the U.S. economy and the historically low unemployment levels is the fact that with more people working there are also more new leaders in the workforce than ever before as well.  Some of the new leaders have been promoted because they are ready, and some of them have been promoted because too many businesses are so desperate for managers, they have no choice.

Read More >