Sovereignty and the Single Business
I’ve been thinking a lot about sovereignty and freedom lately, all arising out of a perfect storm. The emphasis on achieving freedom from many people I respect (and others I don’t) in the business world, colliding with my own struggles with strategic planning, and I knew I needed to dig into this. I was sitting […]
How the Heck Long Should You Follow-up With Someone?
It’s awkward. You know they’re interested in what you offer, you’re not just making it up. Frustrating. You know they need what you’re offering. They know they could sure use it. And the first of the month is coming up again. Yet, they haven’t bought yet. It’s been weeks (months, really). When do you give […]
Some Sufi Love for V-Day
One of my favorite love poems is a short one from Hafiz, which appears in The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky. Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with a love like that–it lights up the whole sky. As beautiful as that is, I […]
The Magnetics, the Wrong People, and Why Things Aren’t Really That Hard
I was talking to a friend recently, and he was explaining how he was struggling to get clear on his business message. I asked him what he had so far, and he told me. “Hmmm… that seems pretty clear to me. And good. I’m not really getting where you’re stuck.” As he started to explain, […]
The Underlying Reason Why People Aren’t Saying Yes
The last few weeks I’ve been writing a lot about that twenty to fifty minute conversation you have with prospective clients, sometimes called the “sales conversation.” For such a shortish conversation, there’s a lot that goes into it and lot that comes out of it. It carries all of our hopes and fears as business […]
How to Tell When Someone Really Does Need to “Think About It”
I bet if you could listen in on the tens of thousands of conversations happening right this very second between business owners and potential clients, you’d hear this phrase a lot: “Let me think about it and get back to you.” For the business owner, it’s a spine-chilling, hope-killing, exhausting thing to hear. For every […]
The Cliff Edge Moment in the Sales Conversation
You know that moment I mean. You’ve been chatting along nicely with your potential client for fifteen, or maybe fifty, minutes, and suddenly things feel different. A bit wobbly. A bit… on the edge? The energy changed in the conversation, in ways both subtle and dramatic. Nothing you said, nothing they said. But suddenly, you’re […]
The Two Things You Love Most Are Muddying Up Your Business
“Bwoke!” My two-year old son was sitting in the bath trying to find the missing piece to one of his bath toys. Of course, being two years old, “looking for” consisted of looking at me with a truly pitiful expression, and saying “Bwoke!” (his version of “broken”). The soap had clouded the water, so as […]
Sticky Notes Versus the To-Do List Tsunami
Earlier this year I replaced our kitchen sink. At one point I was faced with having to tighten down the basin drain, which comes in two parts: the metal ring on top of the drain hole, and the bottom part which screws into the top part, allowing water to drain down the pipe, instead of […]
Are You a Writer? Am I Writer?
Recently I’ve spoken with two different people who passionately identified themselves as writers. Each of them were absolutely 100% no doubts crystal clear that that was their calling on this Earth, and that writing was a gift to them. I love to write, and I would call myself a writer because I do a fair […]