1: A 5,000 percent return.
“A few years back, we did a survey of some of our top clients to see what type of return on investment (ROI) they were getting from working with us,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their excellent book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
The results were impressive.
“The ROI was 5,000 percent,” the authors report. “That’s not a typo.”
Super exciting. … continue reading
First, picture an apple.
Easy to do.
Why?
“Because you’ve experienced apples with your senses,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
“You’ve probably done some combination of touching, tasting, seeing, and smelling an apple,” Erik and Tim note.
“You’ve even heard the crunching sound that an apple makes when you bite into it.”
An apple is concrete because you’ve … continue reading
1: The competition to host the 2016 Summer Olympics was down to the final four cities: Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro.
How much was winning the games worth, according to a Credit Suisse study?
The answer: ten billion dollars.
“Three of the cities had reason to be optimistic,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
“Chicago had President Obama … continue reading
1: A GE worker had an idea.
He suggested to his managers that they stop outsourcing the construction of protective shields for their grinding machines, as Charles Duhigg explains in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.
This employee was taking part in what GE called a “Work-Out” within a struggling division that made jet engine parts.
Yesterday, we looked at a potential trap with SMART … continue reading
1: “I love professional wrestling!” the man said.
Jeremie Kubicek raised his eyebrows. “Alright then,” he thought.
“The funny part,” he writes in The 5 Gears, the book he co-authored with Steve Cockram, “was that his answer was the last thing I thought he would have said.
“If he had stated, ‘I like to collect stamps,’ that would have matched up to my expectations based on what he … continue reading
1: The year was 1975.
Psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham measured how fast forty-five of the fastest typists at a large company were able to generate text.
“The typists knew they were among the best in the company, but they had never measured how quickly they typed,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better.
On average, each typist generated ninety-five lines of output per hour, setting a clear … continue reading
1: You are stuck.
“If only your prospects knew as much about your company and its solutions as you do, they would buy from you, right?” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
Not so fast, the authors suggest.
Erik and Tim emphasize the importance of finding your unique story and point of view as a salesperson. This is essential … continue reading
1: “Every Saturday, a siren goes off in Tim’s quiet suburban community, signaling that it is noontime. No one gives it much attention around town,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their terrific book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
It’s just the “noon whistle,” people say.
But the same siren is also used to signal a severe weather emergency.
“As a result,” the authors note, “the same … continue reading
1: Did you know that Babe Ruth began his baseball career in 1914 using a 54-ounce bat?
“That’s a big bat,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
“For those of you who are not familiar with what’s ‘normal’ for baseball bats,” the authors note, “most professional baseball players today use a bat that weighs between 31 and 35 ounces.”… continue reading
1: “We managers like to talk about change, so much that embracing change has become a cliché of management,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.
But not all changes are the same.
What Andy calls “a strategic inflection point is not just any change,” he notes. “It compares to change the way Class VI rapids on a … continue reading
