I was standing in line at one of those office superstores to buy a plastic file box as preparation (and motivation) for the annual ritual of cleaning up my files, and I happened to glance up at a huge poster with an incredible promise. There, within that very building, it claimed, was everything I needed [...]
I’m sitting in the cozy living room of a house perched on the side of a steep hill overlooking Skaneateles Lake. (Pronounced “skinny-atlas”, it’s the second easternmost of New York’s Finger Lakes). From my comfortable wide-armed mission chair I have a 180-degree view of the calm, glistening water through the windows that surround me on [...]
As I rushed home to catch Andre Agassi in the final stage of his transformation from tennis celebrity to endearing human being at the US Open last month, I was looking forward to the tennis, but dreading the commercials. Yet much to my surprise, one of the ads spoke to me with the power and [...]
Thirty-four years ago this month, I put my oldest daughter on a school bus for the first time. The emotions that were a part of that day come back to me every year when I see school supplies on sale, and when the first day of school comes around and I see kids congregated at [...]
Today you enter the Boott Cotton Mill at the Lowell National Historical Park the same way that the thousands who worked there from 1835 through the early twentieth century did—through the white wood Gothic-arched doorway leading to a five-story spiral staircase enclosed in a vertical brick tower. Although the stairs are made of stone, they [...]
For those of us who live on the outer part of this hook of sand known as Cape Cod, Hyannis is our “big city”. It’s where most of the big stores we shop in and the larger businesses and organizations we rely on are located. To get there, you almost always have to deal with [...]
I am often asked to present at large business gatherings, the kind that offer ample opportunities for networking. Recently at a particularly well attended event, I overheard a woman who was just leaving say with great excitement that she had had a great networking day. She had come with a hundred business cards and was [...]
A few years ago, I did a full-day workshop on transition for a group of alumni of Bentley College. Right after we finished lunch, just before we started back again, someone expressed frustration with the inefficiency and wastefulness of traditional job-search practices, and I made the offhand remark, “If I had my way, we’d throw [...]
If you’ve decided to launch a new business venture, you’ll find plenty of books telling you how to go about writing a business plan, securing financing, setting up payroll, etc. Likewise, if you’ve been laid off or you’ve decided you want to make a change, there’s no lack of information on how to start a [...]
In last month’s column I described how a consultative sales approach made it possible for employees who were unaccustomed to functioning as salespeople to be effective in that role. A consultative sales approach is just as valuable to people who are engaged in work search, whether they have been laid off or have chosen to [...]
In last month’s column I talked about how educated consumers are bringing about the extinction of the hard-driving salesperson at the same time that businesses are facing unprecedented competitive challenges. It makes perfect sense for businesses who are trying to stay profitable in this new environment to set the goal of having every employee contribute [...]
There’s good news for those of us who think we can’t sell. The salesman as we have known him is becoming extinct. The unprecedented access to information that is available at our fingertips on the Internet and elsewhere is causing his habitat of hype, bravado, and manipulation to shrink, and soon he will disappear. He’s [...]
