As many of you know, 2018 was a rough year for my family. My wife was diagnosed with lung cancer in March 2018. After extensive treatment and far too much suffering, she died in December 2018. Because my focus was taking care of her, I put the Inside Sales Dude blog and business on hold…
Category: Inside Sales Dude
All posts from Inside Sales Dude (circa 2017-2018)
How To Build A Leads List for A Consulting Firm (or for Enterprise Sales)
When I was a little kid and still believed in Santa Claus, I would prepare my Christmas list months in advance. I followed a simple, proven method for building my list. Write down anything I wanted from TV commercials like Rockem Sockem Robots, Slinky, and a Big Wheel. Add stuff my friends owned like Color TVs,…
We All Need A Kick In The A$$ Sometimes
A few years ago I was doing a pipeline deep dive for my team and I saw that my top rep’s pipeline was way too low. This rep (let’s call him JC since that’s his name) was one of the few “natural salesmen” I’ve ever met. He had the hustle, the attitude and the skills…
Stop Trying To Motivate Your Sales Team
When I was a sales manager, I was often told to motivate the sales team. Executive Management wanted me to “light a fire under the reps”. Middle Management said, “encourage their competitive spirit”. Even reps would sometimes say, “I need you to motivate me.” I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but sales managers can’t motivate…
How You Treat Your Customer Is More Important Than How You Sell, What You Sell or Your Expertise
I am typing this from the waiting room in the hospital where my wife is in the operating room having major surgery for lung cancer. I hate hospitals and pretty much despise the healthcare industry in general, but today I’m going to talk about the great customer experience I’ve had here at Cleveland Clinic in…
Your Job Posting Probably Sucks
I am considering a job search. Although consulting’s been slow this year, I haven’t entirely giving up on self-employment. But, in case I cannot make self-employment work, for they first time in nearly 2 years, I started looking at job postings. Searching job postings is depressing. Most of the time they are written by people who…
A Post A Day
I am going to try writing a post a day for the next few weeks. I was inspired by Seth Godin who wrote here: …committing to having a point of view and scheduling a time and place to say something is almost certainly going to improve your thinking, your attitude and your trajectory. A daily…
Shutting Down My Business
In thinking about yesterday’s post and one from 6 weeks earlier I realized that that I’ve gotten caught up in thinking too much about my work problem rather than dealing with it. The problem is that my consulting business is not generating enough money to support my family and I don’t have enough in savings to…
Go Onsite To Increase Your Close Rate to 90%
The most fun I’ve ever had in my sales career was going onsite to customer locations and touring the facilities. My win rate was over 90% when I did this. (You might think this was due to my stunning good looks and irresistible charm, but you’d be mistaken – although I appreciate the sentiment!) But…
How to Sell When Your Product is “A Nice To Have”
My wife Ellen likes to watch home improvement shows like Fixer Upper. I’m not a big fan of these shows. I find them banal and monotonous with far too many commercials. But the worst part is that after watching these shows, Ellen walks into our kitchen, sighs loudly and says, “We really need to put in…