Blog

Professional Selling Skills: A fundamental now more essential than ever

August 23, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

In 16 BIE (Before Internet Era), business purchases were made by decision-makers who needed to buy stuff for their operations, and they almost always needed help with technical questions, innovations, pricing, availability, delivery, etc.

That year, a/k/a, 1977, every business buyer went to work expecting salespeople to call on them, unscheduled. To a prospect, a “cold call” was not optimum but usually was tolerated. Yes, in those days, you could walk into a business where you were previously unknown and leave with a sale. For current customers, dropping in was expected as good service. Remember, this was BIE, when a salesperson was the equivalent of a website.

As beautifully as this dance by motivated parties worked – one needed information and the other provided it – salespeople were still trained to conduct business with what Xerox (where I worked in 1977) called Professional Selling Skills (PSS). There were three key components to PSS: overcoming objections, closing skills, and probing. [Continue Reading]

Internet Genesis Chapter 1, verses 1-3: And it was good.

August 18, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Internet Genesis (1961-1974): Chapter 1, verse 1: On the first day, The Genius Cluster said, “Let there be a network of networks.” And they saw that it was good and named it “The Internet.”

Verse 2: On the second day, The Cluster said, “Let there be structure.” And so it was that the three building blocks – now known as the World Wide Web – were formed and mounted on The Internet:

HTTP, a computer language that ultimately turned code into a lever that regular people could use (like a website),
direct messaging,
and email.

Verse 3: On the third day, seeing that their creations were good, The Cluster rested.

For many generations – okay, about two – the Internet and the WWW flourished with few changes until one day a heretic said, “Let’s connect on Twitter.” [Continue Reading]

Awareness and Consciousness: The Secrets of Success of Highly Effective People

August 11, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Ever wonder why some people are more effective than others? Life just seems to be easier for them, right?

The answer to this mystery is likely found in one of the most obvious traits that separate us from other members of the kingdom Animalia: humans are self-aware.

Human’s self-awareness looks like modesty, shame, empathy, fairness, greed, selfishness, selflessness, and ambition … just to name a few traits from our awareness inventory. But the most self-aware among us – those highly effective people – are informed by a bigger picture perspective regarding the impact of their behavior and actions on the world around them, especially with other humans.

As students of Newton’s 3rd Law – for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction – highly effective people are not surprised when and how the world reacts to them, because they’ve already role-played at least some level of that potential response in their minds. And members of this special cohort of effectiveness fashioned all this awareness into something that looks like a practice, a behavior, a skill, and/or a tool, but is called self-analysis. Intuitively named, self-analysis helps regulate future behavior for maximum effectiveness. More on self-analysis in a minute. [Continue Reading]

Dispelling The Myths Of Ownership

July 26, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Since hope truly does spring eternal, on any given day you’re likely to meet a starry-eyed human babbling on about becoming a business owner.

Probing for the object of this person’s entrepreneurial infatuation will precipitate what, where, how, and when questions and, finally, the most important question: Why do you want to own a business? Answers to this last one, unfortunately, often produce what I call “The Myths of Small Business Ownership.” Here are the four most prominent: [Continue Reading]

The Gold-Mining Tool of Professional Salespeople

July 19, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

What follows is a story about the most powerful tool in sales.

A few decades ago, a 27-year-old, shiny, new copier sales representative was minted by Xerox Corporation. Already a sales veteran, it wasn’t his first rodeo. Indeed, he worked his way through college selling on commission.

Commissioned salespeople, like entrepreneurs, work the marketplace high wire. Observing this act, a salaried employee once remarked that selling on commission was “living by your wits.” In the vernacular, business-to-business sales professionals know and accept that “you eat what you kill.” [Continue Reading]

How a Small Business Is Like a Tour de France Team

July 12, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

If it’s July, one of the most amazing athletic competitions in the world is being staged. Since 1903, the Tour de France has been the pinnacle of professional bicycle races, and arguably the most grueling of all sporting competitions.

Contested over 23 days, with the 21 stages averaging more than 110 miles each, there are only two days of rest in the middle. These super-athletes from all over the world navigate diverse road conditions, rain, wind, heat, and legendary mountain ranges – no less than the Alps and Pyrenees – that God surely made for us to ski down, not pedal up.

If the sun’s coming up on Main Street, millions of small business owners also mount one of the most grueling competitions in the business world merely by opening up. Against all odds, they start, run and grow their operations in conditions few corporate America CEOs would be willing to face. But unlike the Tour de France, small business owners run their race every day of the year.

Combining my admiration for both of these types of super-humans, I’ve identified four required elements to successfully compete in the Tour de France or the marketplace. [Continue Reading]