1: One of Google Productivity Expert Laura Mae Martin‘s most popular trainings centers around what she calls “The List Funnel.”

We “can think of to-do lists like a funnel,” Laura writes in her book Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing.  “Start with the highest level of everything we could possibly do, or want to do, and narrow it down into what we actually will do … continue reading

1: So how exactly do we define productivity?

Google productivity expert Laura Mae Martin tells us in her book Uptime that productivity is comprised of three distinct elements:

Step #1: Defining clearly what we want to do,

Step #2: Setting aside the (right) time and place to do it, and

Step #3: Executing well within the designated time.

Productivity, Laura believes, is closely aligned with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi‘s concept of … continue reading

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” -John Dewey

1: As leaders, one of our most important roles is to help our team members learn from their experiences.

How do we do that?  

We ask questions.

“There are two questions that we should ask of a salesperson at the end of a call or at the end of the day,” writes Brian Tracy in his … continue reading

1: As leaders, one of our most important roles is to unlock the full potential of each person on our teams.

One of the best ways to release this potential is to organize “Quality Circles,” Brian Tracy writes in his terrific book Sales Management.

This practice involves gathering our team for a specific one-hour time block each week to focus on a single question to drive “continuous and never-ending … continue reading

1: The date was April 1, 1993. Lou Gerstner had just been named CEO of IBM. For decades, IBM had been one of the world’s most admired corporations.

Now, it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Lou had started his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s largest and most respected consultancies. Soon after taking his new role, he asked his friends at … continue reading

1: What percentage of people’s thinking is emotional?  And what percentage is logical/rational?  

The answer?  “People are 100 percent emotional,” Brian Tracy asks in his book Sales Management.

This week, we’ve been exploring what makes a great sales leader.  (Which is the same thing as what makes a great leader of any type.)

Brian tells us there are two critical leadership qualities.  We’ve looked at the first leadership quality: Clarity.… continue reading

“If you will be hard on yourself, life will be easy on you.  But if you insist on being easy on yourself, life is going be hard on you.” -Zig Ziglar

“Discipline weighs ounces; regret weighs tons.” -Jim Rohn

1: Performing at the highest level requires discipline.

“Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, whether you feel like it or not,” Elbert Hubbard once said.

If … continue reading

1: “Top people go where the standards are the highest,” business philosopher Jim Rohn would say.

If we want to attract and keep people, “treat them like a crack team, with clear standards and disciplines that we insist on every single day,” writes Brian Tracy in his book Sales Management, “The very best salespeople perform at the highest levels when they are working in a tightly organized, well-disciplined sales … continue reading

Results.

I have a new role at PCI.  In addition to being CEO, I am also currently serving as the leader of our outside sales team. Two weeks ago, our longtime leader of that team came to me and expressed a desire to step back from the leadership role.  Prior to starting a search to find our new outside sales leader, I chose to take this role on for a period of … continue reading