The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

We hope you had a relaxing and safe long weekend last week. We certainly did! This week, we came back refreshed and wrote about a variety of topics. We wrote about different kinds of salespeople, concentration, motivating prospects, and managing your expectations regarding inbound marketing.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Mike Anderson told us that we suceed in sales, but we have to concentrate. More options is not better.

• Tuesday, Harry Tomasides asked us what kind of salesperson we thought we were, and gave us a series of interesting questions we should ask ourselves to give ourselves a gut check.

This week's posts touched on a lot of things: easing writer's block, helping with our online brands, mosquitos (!!!), and the reason people won't give us the time of day. Enjoy the variety!

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Dani Buckley helped unstick my writer's block by teaching us how to create lead-generating headlines for blog posts. Bookmark it, and refer to it when you can't think of something to write about.

• Tuesday, Greg Giersch taught us three ways we could build (or batter) our online reputations. I know I learned something about my brand, did you?

This week's posts

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Mike Anderson told us we're all in positions to be disrupted. It's our choice whether we want to be on the side of the disruptors or the disrupted.

• Tuesday, Matt Sunshine revealed the solution to ending the struggle between internal sales and marketing departments, and his solution is elegant.

Look at the calendar. If it is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday—or sometimes even Saturday or Sunday—your industry and your career are likely going through or preparing for a disruption. No one is immune.

Ask anyone who used to sell compact discs containing recorded music. Ask the guy who used to sell those phones that were tethered to a wall. Ask the staff photographers at the Chicago Sun-Times. Ask the guy who puts lug nuts on the wheels of every Ford that comes off the assembly line (oh, no, wait… that guy’s a robot now). If you think you’re not going to experience a disruption in your category or career, you might be crazy or have a serious case of denial.

If you’re reading this blog, you are likely employed in sales, management, or marketing. So how do you survive disruption and thrive in a new era? There are two ways. First, you can be the disruptor (that one’s easy to say but not so easy to do).

This week's posts were all about introspection. Look within to lead. From personal branding to finding talent, it was all about asking the right questions.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Christi Cool wrote about Russian ballerinas and asked if we were good talent detectives.

• On Tuesday, Mike Anderson asked how well we knew ourselves. Do we see in the mirror what other people see?
  

A while back, there was an entertaining story about a tour bus in Iceland that had pulled over so passengers could inspect a volcano field. One of the passengers stepped into a nearby restroom to freshen up and change into clean clothes. Upon her return, she found the rest of the passengers frantically looking for a woman that had gone missing. She joined in the search, of course, but neither she nor the other tourists could find the lady matching the description of the person who had wandered off.

This week's posts went in a variety of directions. Although the posts varied wildly in topic (we had everything from lions to McDonald's to Pete Carrol!), they all related to looking out at the world around us to look inward. You'll see what I mean below.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Dana Bojcic wrote about how an injury turned her son into a caged lion, and warned managers not to cage the lions on their team. Are you caging your lions? Are you a lion that need

• On Tuesday, Mike Anderson told us the common connection between McDonald's, Mercedes, and you, which was a post about professional branding. Your brand is the thought that comes to mind when someone says your name.
  

When you hear the word Mercedes it is likely that a visual image of a luxury German automobile pops immediately into your mind. Likewise, when people hear McDonald’s it conjures a specific image almost immediately. You might picture a restaurant with golden arches somewhere near your home or your favorite menu item. You might see a logo, hear the company’s jingle, or recall an experience you had at a McDonald’s restaurant.

Such is the power of branding. From FedEx to Kleenex, from Macy’s to Applebee’s. Having a brand means that an image pops immediately to mind when you hear or see the name.

And the same is true of you. You have a brand.

Four-day weeks always seem to fly by. We took a long weekend, then came back on Tuesday, and hit the ground running! Now that we're officially in summer mode, we're reading our books outside on the patio and generally spending more time in the sun.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, many of the employees here at The Center for Sales Strategy weighed in on their favorite business books they've read in the last year. I don't know about you, but I put in my Amazon order!

• On Tuesday, Alina Diaz gave us five steps to developing a strong social media strategy. I like that she focused on individuals rather than companies -- there are great takeaways for everyone who reads that post.
  

Does it ever seem like life is moving so fast that everything’s a blur? I can help you with that by sharing this one simple law of physics: You cannot focus on everything. So of course, when you try, everything’s going to be a blur. 

A few years ago, I took a photography course. One of the early assignments was to focus on a fast-moving object by keeping the camera trained on the subject, regardless of the background. That’s why this picture of a car moving down the highway is in focus, but the road and everything else around it is blurry.