1: It was 1968, and the executives at NASA had a problem.
“The space agency had a lot of smart people on staff, but smart and creative were different things,” Steven Kotler writes in his brilliant book The Art of Impossible.
“NASA’s lifeblood was innovation. They desperately needed their most creative engineers working their most difficult challenges,” Steven notes. ” Yet telling the Picassos from the … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
This week, we’ve been exploring ideas from David Brooks‘s wonderful book How to Know a Person.
“Over the past four years,” he writes, “I’ve become determined to learn … continue reading
1: “Sometimes you can learn more about a person by watching how they talk to a waiter than by asking some profound question about their philosophy of life,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
“Even when we know someone well,” he notes, “I find that if we don’t talk about the little things on … continue reading
1: M has contempt for her daughter-in-law, D.
“The mother-in-law is always perfectly polite to D, but inside, she looks down on her,” Iris Murdoch states in her celebrated lecture “The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts,” as shared by David Brooks in his book How to Know a Person.
“But M is aware that she can be a bit superior, conventional, and old-fashioned,” Iris notes. “M … continue reading
1: Journalist and author David Brooks was sitting at a bar near his home nursing his bourbon.
“Because the bar was in D.C.,” he writes in How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, “there were three guys at a table behind me talking about elections and swing states.Â
“I was studying the bartender’s Chinese-character tattoos and drawing all sorts of … continue reading
1: Journalist and author David Brooks was intimidated.
He was interviewing a ninety-three-year-old Black woman named LaRue Dorsey at a local diner in Waco, Texas.
A former teacher, LaRue “presented herself to me as a stern drill sergeant type, a woman, she wanted me to know, who was tough, who had standards, who laid down the law,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person.
“I … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
This week, we’ve been exploring ideas from Jeffrey Fox‘s terrific book on sales, How to Become a Rainmaker.
2: For the last 16 months, I’ve been leading … continue reading
1: “In the selling arena, customers don’t care if you have a mortgage to pay,” Jeffrey Fox writes in How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients.
“Customers don’t care if you need their business to win a contest,” he notes. “Customers don’t care why your shipments are late. Customers don’t care what you like, where you went to school, or what sports … continue reading
1: What’s the best time to make a sales call on a decision-maker?
Any time.
“Excellent selling times are before eight o’clock any morning and after three on Friday afternoons,” Jeffrey Fox writes in How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients.
Why are early-morning sales calls productive?
First, there are fewer or limited interruptions. Second, agreeing to meet at an unusual hour is … continue reading
1: The best salespeople are known as Rainmakers.
And Rainmakers “never make a sales call on a customer unless they can answer the question ‘Why should this customer do business with my company or with me?'” Jeffrey Fox writes in How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients.
“The answer must be a benefit to the customer,” he notes. “The answer must fit … continue reading
