Death by PowerPoint was one of the funniest phrases I’d ever heard – until I started experiencing it after taking a sales management job in a large corporation. Up until then, I had worked for startups and small businesses where we didn’t spend time in meetings listening as presenters droned on reading their terrible slides. We were too busy…
Category: Inside Sales Dude
All posts from Inside Sales Dude (circa 2017-2018)
Why I Hire Weirdos
This post is not sugar-coated for political correctness or HR appropriateness. I work in the real world where prejudice, biases and unfair employment practices abound. Instead of pretending they don’t exist, let’s deal with them head on. I’ve built outstanding teams by following a few simple hiring principles: Hire weirdos. Hire people for their strengths. Build teams with diverse skills sets….
3 Big Rocks for Time Management
My approach to time management is to ruthlessly prioritize what’s important and do it first. I call this the 3 Big Rocks method. Being busy was my problem. It all started when I was running a multi-state team of 3 managers and about 15 reps for a startup ISP during the dotcom boom. The internet was taking off, everyone was starting…
How To Never Be Surprised When Someone Quits
“I hate you and never want to talk to you again!” she yelled and then hung up on me. That, my friends, was how my first girlfriend blindsided me and broke my heart in high school (way back during the dark ages). I had no clue it was coming. We had spent time together that very…
Just One Of Those Days
Last month my son Zack’s car broke down on the way to work. This was the first of a small avalanche of problems: He rescheduled all of his shoots for the next day and dropped his car off at the mechanic. He drove 30 miles to my house to borrow my car. The next morning, he woke up to…
Is It Time To Spring Clean Your Leads?
Last month, Inside Sales Dude had its 1 year anniversary and this month I have my 50th birthday. (I know, you don’t even have to say it, I don’t look a day over 25). To celebrate ISD’s birthday, I decided it was time to spring clean my newsletter email list.
Too Much Information Is Making Me Stupid
Back in the dark ages, during the dotcom boom of the late ’90s, business was booming at Stargate where I ran the sales team. It was so busy that our challenge was keeping up with the demand while handling our company’s exponential growth. Like the employees at many startups, we adopted a “do whatever it takes”…
The Scrap Man & Sales Partnerships
In my neighborhood bulk trash pickup is the first Monday of every month. People pile up old furniture, appliances, yard garbage and debris at the curb. The weekend before pickup, the Scrap Man drives up and down our streets to pick anything metal that he can take to sell to the recycling center. It’s an example…
How Can a Bidet Solve Your Sales Problem?
I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to learn that I recently installed a bidet in my bathroom. It all started earlier this year when my son Zack returned from a photo shoot in Portugal and exclaimed, We are so stupid in the US! I can’t believe we use toilet paper when the rest of the world uses…
Take Advantage of Being the Boss
I hate business travel and the complications that come with it: inevitable flight delays & cancellations, noisy hotel rooms promising sleepless nights, bad food at high prices and anything that has to do with flying. Even when I’m out of town for just one night I miss my wife, my pets, my bed, my house and even…