Don’t Be the Restaurant No One Wants to Eat At Because It Is Empty June 6, 2011

You are walking around an unfamiliar neighborhood with a couple of friends. You are on your way to a party or perhaps just a movie. But you have a bit of time and decide to stop to eat dinner first. You can’t be too choosy, but it appears you have two options. From the outside both look clean and well maintained. The lights are working. From the menus posted in the windows, both seem to offer some appetizing choices. And neither you nor your friends are opposed to either due to personal tastes. But, there seems to be something off about one of them. You can’t quite put your finger on it at first, but then you realize what it is. One of them appears, for all practical purposes, to be empty, save the one out-of-place guy in the corner you see while peering through the window, while the other is overflowing with patrons waiting to be seated. Which do you choose?

Sales Is Simple June 6, 2011

People often attempt to make a relatively simple issue more complex. At the end of the day, sales is pretty simple. I’m not saying anyone can do it, but I’ve been doing it my whole life so that fact alone means there must be some simplicity to it!

Getting Down to Business with Constant Contact, Social Media, and Daniel Nuccio May 31, 2011

Last month I had the opportunity to attend Constant Contact’s “Get Down to Business” seminar in Chicago. Not only was I able to meet with a variety of people working in social media, or at least implementing it for their businesses, as well as see presentations from several top people in the industry, but I was also able to attend a special lunch with Steve Robinson, Gail Goodman, and a small handful of respected guests and loyal Constant Contact customers.

Big Whale Accounts Are Great, But Developing Relationships with Referral Sources Can pay the Bills March 7, 2011

When you work in sales one of your primary goals is to get big accounts and yearly contracts: “the big whale accounts.” However, it is also important to keep an eye open for smaller, regular, everyday opportunities because many times these are the ones that pay the bills.

Welcome 2011, A Year to Work Smarter and Grow the Right Way! January 3, 2011

Since most of my November and December articles talk about how you shouldn’t stop your sales efforts during the “holiday months” because you will be behind your competition come the start of January, I am sure that all of you are expecting me to be writing something along the same lines. Well we are very busy and I am proud to say that all of your clients heeded our advice this year and are reaping the benefits as phones are ringing off the hook this week (do people still have phones that “hook?”) however that is not what this article is about.

Here We Are December 1, 2010

Here we are…at the beginning of the 12th month of the calendar. Boy has 2010 flown by. It seems like just yesterday when I was writing about the start of a new decade (which is actually this year, but I’m not going to start that conversation again). So much has happened in our world and in the world over the past 11 months. It seems as though the economy has taken a turn for the better, thanks in large part to many of my friends who own small to mid-sized businesses. To paraphrase George Bailey from my favorite movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, it is the small to mid sized business who does most of the living and working and purchasing and dying in this world. We didn’t need a bailout, we just needed our entrepreneurial spirit to help us continue to grow in tougher times.

Happy Thanksgiving Month to Everyone!!! November 1, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving month to everyone. One of my favorite times of the year is about to begin. Thanksgiving is a time where we stop (OK, slow down—more on that later) and say thank you for all that we have, no matter how big or small. For all of its faults, we are lucky enough to live in the greatest country in the world and we at Randolph Sterling, Inc. get to work with some of the greatest clients in the world.

It’s Getting to Be Budget Time October 4, 2010

The leaves are starting to turn colors and my morning runs that over the summer were done in sunshine are now at the same time done in darkness. It must be October. Autumn is upon us, and that usually means two things—salespeople trying to reach their annual quota and clients starting to work on next year’s budget.

The End of Summer Is almost Here September 1, 2010

Here we are, the “end of summer” as the kids get back to school, summer vacations have been taken, and it is back to the old routine. But wait a second, I went out for a walk this morning to just reflect a bit on 2010 so far and it was already in the 80’s with high humidity…are you sure that summer is ending?

The Importance of Specific Social Media Goals August 3, 2010

Back around the holidays I was at a party where I met a social media skeptic, who put me in one of those situations where I was given minimal information about a business and thirty seconds to explain how implementing the social media could vastly improve every aspect about it.