You Won’t Believe What’s New In Sales Training!

For those of you who follow the ups and downs, ins and outs of the sales training industry, here is the latest, as of today, April 1, 2009:

Miller Heiman and furniture manufacturer Herman Miller have announced a merger.  The new business, to be called Herman Miller Heiman, will be offering a new, upgraded version of [...]

My PC. Useless To Perfect In 90 Minutes!

I’ve been sick in bed with a nasty virus.  I’ve got a bit of pneumonia as a dividend.  I guess I can’t expect real dividends these days.  Compared to many in the world, I’m lucky.  But, I feel pretty short-tempered and was in no mood for my wonderful Dell 620 to be taken over by [...]

Errr… Ahhh… Ahem. Can Any Of You Passengers Fly An Airplane?

When people find out I’m a pilot, some invariably ask, “Could you land a jetliner if something happened to the pilot?”  I’ll answer that shortly.
You might think that such a sitation never arises.  But it does.  Claire McBride sent me this article just a few minutes ago, Pilot sought help of passengers to land jet, [...]

Did You Expense The Lap Dances?

We Live in a World That Requires Revenue is, by a considerable margin, the top post on this blog.  I’m trying not to take it personally.  I laughed harder than anyone when I first saw it, especially since I’ve been using the “You can’t handle the truth” metaphor in my presentations and articles for many years.
So, last Monday I received this email.  [...]

Ten of My Most Popular Posts for Sales Leaders

I’m very pleased that traffic on this blog has grown significantly since I created it last April.  With that in mind, I suspect some of you who are new to this blog may have missed some of the earlier posts. 
Here are the most popular, based upon this blog’s Top Posts stats:

Observing a Sales Training Program (Part 1)
Sales Training Company [...]

Clichés: They’re a Dime a Dozen

Since I started this blog, I’ve been reading books on writing.  (Mike and Jeremy, my editors at Sales and Marketing Management magazine probably wish I had begun upgrading my writing skills a long time ago.) 
I’ve also been reading the blogs of businesspeople who write well, such as Geoffrey James and John Caddell.  My brother, Lee Stein, renowned in the [...]

A New Way to Get Sales and Marketing Aligned

With all this talk about sales and marketing alignment, I figured the best way to get sales and marketing aligned is to morph a sales guy into a marketing guy and visa versa.  That way they’ll both understand what life is like as a member of the other team.
So Brian and I tried it out, [...]

A Tortured Walk in a Deep Freeze

In a few weeks I’ll be in Minnesota working with a new client. The first time I visited the twin cities was in the mid 1980’s. It was August and it was 32 degrees when I arrived. You don’t forget something like that.
When I first speak with any of that client’s team members, or anyone in Minnesota for that [...]

Dave Stein’s World-Class Frozen Margarita

It’s July. It’s Friday. Here’s a treat for you.* We’ll get back to the serious stuff on Monday.
Over the years I’ve had many requests for the recipe for my world-class frozen margarita. (The “world-class” designation was unanimous among the dozens of volunteers visiting our margarita testing laboratory, adjacent to ESR headquarters.)
Ingredients:

2 [...]

Oh No! We’re Approaching “The End of…” Era

I’m still loving my Kindle. 
Last night I was reading a fantastic book: Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.  (Hopefully my blog posts and columns will be more enjoyable for you to read as a result.)  A good friend of mine had recommended that I read Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World.  [...]