BLArticle®
The personal touch of a blog; the informative touch of an article.
You Can Judge A Book By Its Cover
A BLArticle® Miniseries Part 4 “You Can Judge A Book By Its Cover” We grew up hearing, over and over again, the following statement: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” In the new, multi-visual, internet driven, see-it-buy-it world we live in, I believe this could...
Release The Hounds!
A BLArticle® Miniseries Part 3 - Release The Hounds! Several months ago, when a release date of June 3rd was finally announced for my latest book, one of my tasks was to interview potential publicists. Visions of the “Today Show” and other glamorous appearances...
It Starts With…
A BLArticle® Miniseries Part 2 “It Starts With…” I can see the question coming a mile away. Almost every time I finish a keynote or a workshop, I end up talking with a handful of courageous souls who come on up to meet me. Some just want to say thank you, and others...
How to Change Minds
(For best results, watch in full screen mode and change to 720p Quality, and if your connection bogs down, take back down to regular quality.) A BLArticle® Miniseries Part 1 - “The Pre-launch” When I’ve written a book in the past, I used to tell my friends that my...
For The Sake Of The Team
It amazes me how often we throw around the word “team.” Some people think that just because you’ve formed a group, you’ve formed a team. In sports, our teammates are often others who were selected from a pool of players, but the moment we show up, and are handed a...
Enhancing What You Read
There seems to be so much doom and gloom in the book world. Bookstores are closing, and Nielsen BookScan, (the organization that tracks book sales,) tells us that book sales around the world are in general decline. This decline is being seen not just in the United...
Choices
Choices. Comedian Buddy Hackett once said this: “As a child, my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” Choice sounds so easy, but the truth is, making the right choices is anything but easy. Ask my friend Ron James. He made the choice to...
A Tale Of Two Invitations
In the morning, we all have our own private office routines. Checking for phone messages, grabbing a cup of coffee, turning on our computers, and checking our email. Then there are the social media routines. For me, that means checking my Facebook and Twitter...
It’s All In The Timing
It happened again. I see it all the time. I watched as a professional speaker fell prey to the same mistake amateurs make all the time. I’m referring to losing your timing in a presentation. We’ve all seen the telltale signs. We sit through fifty minutes of a...
The Art of the Giveaway
Go to any seminar or workshop, and you can usually count on two things: Firstly, there may be too much information presented to you. Secondly, there will probably be some sort of a giveaway. We’ll save the “too much information” issue for another BLArticle®. Right...
The Great Equalizers
For years, I’ve specialized in two different topics: I teach people how to influence the actions of others one-on-one, and I teach people how to influence the actions of others through presentations to groups of people. I have modules that teach how to initiate a...
The 800 Pound Networking Gorilla
Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to the old days, when you could sit by the phone and wait for those clients to call and offer you contracts? Think back to the days when putting a resume out on the street meant multiple job offers. Remember when college graduates came...
The Most Forgotten Step in Closing
After teaching sales to many clients over the past few decades, I think one of my favorite seminars was the hostage negotiation seminar I conducted in Baltimore several years ago. It was an exhilarating experience as I connected the world of selling to the world of...
The Can’t Miss Holiday
I’m a New Year’s Eve man. No doubt about it, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. What can you say about New Years Eve that isn’t positive? Christmas is a wonderful holiday, but not everyone celebrates Christmas. The same could be said for Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Hanukah,...
Prime The Pump
Zig Ziglar passed away a few weeks ago, and I wanted to take a moment to say, “thanks.” For those who may not know of Mr. Ziglar, let me take a moment and bring you up to speed. He was born in Alabama, the tenth of twelve children, and served in the United States...
“Knowing It All”
I’ve always been a basketball fan. I played a lot as a kid in various leagues, and began coaching kids at the age of 22. I coached both boys and girls in house league teams, select teams, and travel teams. I created my own playbooks, and ran full motion offenses. I...
“Not Leaving Well Enough Alone”
As a student of the presentation game, I’ve watched a lot of presentations in my life. After a while, you can quickly get a sense of those that know what they’re doing, and those that struggle a bit. Unfortunately, recently I joined the ranks of the “struggle a bit”...
“The One That Got Away”
While working for Xerox, I became the go-to guy when it came to meeting with our more eclectic clients. I was responsible for working with clients who wanted to understand the Xerox methodology of selling, and wanted to integrate these concepts into their...
“Shaking Hands With The Man”
I’m a pretty lucky person: I have shaken the hands of some pretty impressive people in my lifetime. Amongst others, I have shaken the hands of three of the past four Presidents. Recently, I was able to shake hands and spend a few moments talking with “The Man” in my...
“The Line In The Sand”
Some years ago my wife and I owned a Mercury Marquis that was one, interesting piece of work. It was a fine car, but we had it for quite some time, and over the years it developed some rather interesting, uh, habits. It had a rattle of some sort in the back wheel,...
“Rob is an expert not only in the art of influence,
but also in human nature.”
~Ken Blanchard,
coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and Trust Works!