Top Sales Consultant
Years ago, I got tired of watching salespeople walk into customer conversations and immediately start talking. Features. Benefits. Capabilities. Credentials. Everything they knew about their company and their solution. I started calling it PUKE: People Who Utter Knowledge About Everything. It gets a laugh, but the problem behind it is very real. When you spend…
The results we create often begin with the conversations we choose to have. That includes conversations with customers. Conversations with teams. Conversations between leaders. And perhaps most importantly, the conversations we have with ourselves. I recently joined Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power for a discussion about my career in sales, leadership and professional speaking. Looking…
There’s something I learned years ago about standing in front of an audience that has stayed with me throughout my career. Stop thinking about yourself. Even after years of speaking, there are still moments when the nerves show up before I walk onstage. You wonder how the audience will respond. You think about whether the…
I recently received an honor that caused me to reflect on an entire career. I was inducted into the 2026 Legends of the Speaking Profession. For someone who has spent decades speaking professionally, you might assume that communication always came naturally to me. It didn’t. As a teenager, I had a speech impediment that prevented…
There are people who become successful. There are people who become famous. And then there are those rare individuals who become something much greater. Dolly Parton became an icon. Her story didn’t begin with wealth, connections or opportunity. She grew up as one of 12 children in a one-room cabin in the mountains of Tennessee.…
Vince Lombardi famously said: “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” I agree. Leadership requires effort. It requires discipline, repetition, resilience and a willingness to keep improving. But there’s another piece we cannot afford to overlook: Hard work only creates meaningful progress when it is…
I recently received a sales message that opened by telling me the sender and I were in the same business. There was only one problem. We weren’t. The sender had my name. He had a template. But he clearly hadn’t taken the time to understand what I actually do, who I serve, or whether what…
Some of the biggest breakthroughs in business don’t begin with a brilliant answer. They begin with a different question. I recently came across the story of an industry built around companies purchasing life insurance policies from policyholders. Traditionally, everyone viewed life insurance through essentially the same lens: Buy the policy. Pay the premiums. Eventually, the…
Most communication problems are not caused by what we say. They happen because of what the other person believes they heard. People do not listen to words in isolation. They listen through filters shaped by past experiences, assumptions, emotions, expectations, and beliefs. Those filters can completely change the meaning of a message. I might say:…
In today’s business environment, leaders and sales teams are being pushed to move faster, produce more, adopt new tools, and deliver immediate results. But moving faster does not automatically mean moving forward. One of the most important principles of the Velocity Mindset® is to start with the end in mind, but first, you must make…
Years ago, I got tired of watching salespeople walk into customer conversations and immediately start talking. Features. Benefits. Capabilities. Credentials. Everything they knew about their company and their solution. I started calling it PUKE: People Who Utter Knowledge About Everything. It gets a laugh, but the problem behind it is very real. When you spend…
The results we create often begin with the conversations we choose to have. That includes conversations with customers. Conversations with teams. Conversations between leaders. And perhaps most importantly, the conversations we have with ourselves. I recently joined Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power for a discussion about my career in sales, leadership and professional speaking. Looking…
There’s something I learned years ago about standing in front of an audience that has stayed with me throughout my career. Stop thinking about yourself. Even after years of speaking, there are still moments when the nerves show up before I walk onstage. You wonder how the audience will respond. You think about whether the…
I recently received an honor that caused me to reflect on an entire career. I was inducted into the 2026 Legends of the Speaking Profession. For someone who has spent decades speaking professionally, you might assume that communication always came naturally to me. It didn’t. As a teenager, I had a speech impediment that prevented…
There are people who become successful. There are people who become famous. And then there are those rare individuals who become something much greater. Dolly Parton became an icon. Her story didn’t begin with wealth, connections or opportunity. She grew up as one of 12 children in a one-room cabin in the mountains of Tennessee.…
Vince Lombardi famously said: “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” I agree. Leadership requires effort. It requires discipline, repetition, resilience and a willingness to keep improving. But there’s another piece we cannot afford to overlook: Hard work only creates meaningful progress when it is…
I recently received a sales message that opened by telling me the sender and I were in the same business. There was only one problem. We weren’t. The sender had my name. He had a template. But he clearly hadn’t taken the time to understand what I actually do, who I serve, or whether what…
Some of the biggest breakthroughs in business don’t begin with a brilliant answer. They begin with a different question. I recently came across the story of an industry built around companies purchasing life insurance policies from policyholders. Traditionally, everyone viewed life insurance through essentially the same lens: Buy the policy. Pay the premiums. Eventually, the…
Most communication problems are not caused by what we say. They happen because of what the other person believes they heard. People do not listen to words in isolation. They listen through filters shaped by past experiences, assumptions, emotions, expectations, and beliefs. Those filters can completely change the meaning of a message. I might say:…
In today’s business environment, leaders and sales teams are being pushed to move faster, produce more, adopt new tools, and deliver immediate results. But moving faster does not automatically mean moving forward. One of the most important principles of the Velocity Mindset® is to start with the end in mind, but first, you must make…