There is a fine line between perseverance and self-delusion. Understanding that difference can make a huge difference in a life and a business. Here are some tips on making the distinction.

While we can’t change the competition, we certainly are responsible for our attitudes and behaviors toward the competition. What we say and how we act about the competition can have a daily bearing on our bottom lines. Here are seven specific tactics to help you deal effectively with the competition.

Growing your sales is a goal for almost every business. The challenge is so great, however, that is spawns lots of misguided methods. Here are the four most common mistakes sales leaders make, from a consultant who as worked with hundreds of them.

“When do you give up on trying to see an account?” There is no one definitive answer, but there are six specific practices that you can apply to gain that first meeting with a prospect.

Why is it so difficult to change our behavior? Why are managers and leaders frustrated in trying to help people do better and sell better? The stealth cause is an aspect of human nature that is rarely acknowledged and even more rarely overcome. I’m drilling deeper into the issue and offering some solutions.

This is one of those pieces of conventional wisdom that no one seems to question: “It’s good to be passionate about your product.” Like so many of these conventional myths that ingrain themselves into our psyche, this one has the potential for frustrating countless thousands of salespeople, sales managers and chief sales officers.

Great business leaders require a certain set of character traits to unleash the potential of the enterprises they lead. In this series of seven posts, I articulate my view of the seven character traits essential for great business leaders. In this post, I describe the trait that energizes and ignites all the others – courage.

Good salespeople are not good talkers. Rather, they are good listeners, good thinkers, and hard workers. Good talkers generally make mediocre sales people.

In this sixth of a series on the character traits of great business leaders, I identify one that might be surprising, yet is incredibly powerful – humility. Humility is often misunderstood. In this podcast, I describe it, and show how it is a powerful leadership trait.

Over my 35 years of helping B2B sales forces to sell better, I have noticed a certain set of beliefs that crop up pretty regularly. These are unquestioned beliefs that serve to hinder a salesperson’s performance. This is the second in a series where I expose those beliefs: Good salespeople are good problem solvers.