LeadG2, on July 17, 2015
It's Friday, and it's time for our Top 5 favorite news articles and industry blog posts from this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.
Just how do UX design and content quality affect your SEO ranking? This video from Moz explains how your site's user experience and content quality influence where your pages appear in the search results.
LeadG2, on July 14, 2015
As Baby Boomers are retiring, Gen Xers (those born from about 1965 to 1980), now with several solid years of experience, are moving into decision-making positions. A few days ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how this shift is affecting the culture of companies and how they’re run. The article explained a few shared characteristics of these younger bosses.
Steve Marx, on July 13, 2015
"If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words." — Marcus Tullius Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.), Roman philosopher, lawyer, and orator
Empathy may have been too touchy-feely a concept in Cicero’s day to have been awarded its own word. In fact, the modern word empathy is a 19th century creation in German (einfühlung), migrating to English in the early 20th.
But as soon as a concept is given its own word in Webster’s (the lexicological equivalent of a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame?), the word takes over. It can take on all sorts of meanings never intended at its creation or denoted by its creators.
Today, for most people, empathy is pretty indistinguishable from sympathy, from the concept of wanting to comfort others in whatever distress they may be experiencing, of being, well, touchy-feely. The drive to comfort another may be useful in sales from time to time, but true empathy—the ability to project yourself into the other person’s shoes—is essential to the success of anyone who is trying to sell almost anything.
LeadG2, on July 10, 2015
Throughout the week we're reading news articles and industry blogs, and Friday is the day we share our Top 5 with you. Here are this week's "best" from around the web.
Greg Giersch, on July 8, 2015
Defining what position your own professional brand should take is hard work. Which is why most salespeople and development officers are still talking mostly about their company, their products, and their causes on their LinkedIn profile.
It’s important to be proud of your company. If you are, you might even say you’re blessed, or damn lucky, depending on your point of view. But when someone is deciding whether or not they want to take time to meet with you, it’s about you.
Tina Rice, on July 7, 2015
The movie Chef, starring Jon Favreau, John Leguizamo, and Sofia Vergara was in the theaters last year, and is now available on Netflix and for rental.
Some called it “the feel-good movie of the year” — and I agree — but it’s also a GREAT way to get up to speed on Social Media!
John Henley, on July 6, 2015
I am a big NBA fan and I really enjoyed watching the Finals this year. It was amazing to watch Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors emerge as the MVP. It’s not because I like to see LeBron get shut down (although I do enjoy that!). It’s because Iguodala became the first player in the history of the NBA to win the Finals MVP award without starting every game of the series.
He wasn’t a starter when the Finals began, which partially explains why the Cleveland Cavaliers went up 2 games to 1 before Golden State got their groove. In the course of the series, which the Warriors turned around and won 4-2, Iguodala went from being the first player off the bench (their sixth man, in basketball jargon) to becoming a starter and ultimately the MVP.
LeadG2, on July 3, 2015
Each week we gather up the Top 5 (in our opinion!) posts or articles we've read online, and share them with you. Here are this week's "best" from around the web.
Steve Marx, on July 1, 2015
After 40 years of sales managing, sales consulting, and sales training, I have seen nearly everything. But I never cease to be amazed at those salespeople who pound their chest like Tarzan, have supreme confidence in their ability to wing it, and therefore don’t prepare adequately for upcoming meetings with prospects. They must think good prospects abound, that if you bust an opportunity there’ll be another one just as good right around the corner.
In the real world good prospects are precious, and blowing it because you weren’t prepared is unforgivable. A capital sin because it’s so preventable. The kind of mistake that should prompt your boss to show you the door.
Anyone who has ever brought a first baby home from the hospital knows how it changes your life. The days of being a childless couple suddenly seem distant, almost alien. You may have thought you were busy back then, but with a new baby in your life, you have discovered what busy really is!
This very scenario popped on a TV show I was watching recently. The new parents were finding themselves pulled in a thousand directions and unable to give as much attention to their friends as in the past. To try and explain this to their friends, they would tell them about their “7 or higher” rule. If something wasn’t a 7 or higher (on a 10-point scale), they probably wouldn’t even consider carving out time for it. And if a friend were to approach one of them wanting to discuss something or seek some of their wise counsel, that friend was likely to be greeted with the “7 or higher” question: My time is really limited these days, but if you tell me this is important, that it’s a 7 or higher for you, I’ll make time for it.
