BLArticle®
The personal touch of a blog; the informative touch of an article.
Fear The BlArticle™!
Have you ever had a good idea that you couldn’t get out of your head? Of course you have. Here comes the big question: What did you do about it? If you are like most people, you procrastinated. You told yourself it wouldn’t work, and conveniently forgot about...
Lessons in Alliances
I’ve never been a fan of reality shows, or as I call them, “bad actors acting badly,” but oddly enough, I’ve always been a fan of the first one ever produced. Although some seasons are better than others, my allegiance has never waivered. I’m talking about the social...
The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is… The Fear of Change
For over twenty-five years I have asked audiences a simple question, “What is your biggest fear?” The question is asked not to depress my audiences, or to place a dark cloud over the session I am about to conduct, but rather to expose these fears, and ultimately...
Part of it, and Proud of it
I had the pleasure of working with two salespeople this week, and I respect them both immensely. At one point, our conversation moved to why salespeople are so nervous about being called salespeople. That concept has always been puzzling to me: My father was an...
Want to Motivate Others? It Comes Down to Consequence or Value
How many times have you thought to yourself, “If I could just reach in and motivate that person things would be a lot easier.” This is your lucky week because in this short blog, I think I can provide you with some awfully useful information that will start you...
The Corporate Family… and other Myths
Over 25 years ears ago, when I worked at Xerox, I remember being a part of something that was very special. People who worked for Xerox seemed to work there for a long time and had no plans of leaving, nor did the corporation have any plans of asking them to leave. ...
One Foot in Front of the Other
Each week I try to share with you an idea or thought that I think might be of value to you. That’s part of my job. Just like you, some days on the job are better than others. Some days are so beautiful that we can’t help but smile, and think to ourselves how lucky...
Wanting it too Badly
This week I completed a seminar that was pretty damn good. My client was happy, and I should have been too, but I wasn’t. I wanted more. For some rather personal reasons, I wanted to put on one of the greatest seminars I had ever conducted. I...
Coaching, Mentoring & Their Confusing Place in Management
Coaching, mentoring and management. Those words go together like, “peas in a pod”, like, “ducks in a pond”, like, “peanut and butter”… or do they? When you look at the curious relationship between coaching, mentoring and management you see anything but a...
The Danger of “Partial Buy In”
I want to talk to you about a problem that has the potential to be so big, that it can destroy a corporation. Don’t panic, it’s not something that will destroy a world, or a country, or even a family. It will simply destroy a corporation. It’s a silent killer, and...
Product Knowledge and another Expert Witness Fable
I liked last week’s blog. I liked it so much; I’m just not finished yet. When I last left you I was busy verbally smacking a supposed exert witness around because he had the gall to swear under oath that a salesman who has only sold one thing, could never dream of...
Dueling Expert Witnesses
In my line of work, I’m called on to do many things that involve the world of selling. Sometimes I entertain large crowds about selling. Sometimes I teach smaller groups about selling. Sometimes I consult regarding hiring practices about selling. Sometimes I even...
Master the Art of Emailing… And Learning to Forget it
It’s been a busy week at Jolles Associates, Inc. I spent over five hours on the phone with various people I professionally coach. We were working on strategies to reignite sales that centered on the emails they were writing. We were going to get out...
Coaching Versus Mentoring – I Can Tell You The Difference
Do you know the difference between “coaching” and “mentoring?” Most people don’t. As a matter of fact, most people use the two terms interchangeably as if there is no difference. Well, there happens to be a big difference. You could go to Webster’s...
A Formula for Success – Burn The Ships
I admire my daughter. She will be graduating in five months, and when she does, she’s heading to New York to begin the working part of her journey through life. She has no job yet, no place to live yet, and she barely knows her way around Syracuse let alone one of...
My Kind of Cancellation
Mark these words well, because you won’t hear them uttered by me often. I received a cancellation for a presentation I was scheduled to deliver in January… and I’m happy about it. No, I haven’t been hitting the eggnog; I’m truly happy about it. The request came in...
A Ride to Remember
This week’s blog was supposed to be about a sales message that I think would have hit home for many of us, but a chance encounter with a driver in Kansas City has interrupted that message. We’ll get to it another time. I need to tell you about my new...
Follow Up – Whose Responsibility is it Anyway?
This week I had a Skype call with a European company I work with. If you look at the duration of the relationship you would probably consider it a good one. They have been my European partner teaching one of my programs now for five years. If you look at the way we...
Getting Closer to the Real World
The other week I was putting on a program for a good client of mine and I was really strutting my stuff. I had a right to! The client I was working for had asked that I put on a program that was as close to the real world as possible. This was a...
Building Trust: It’s So Obvious You Can Miss It
It seems like yesterday when I sat in a room with a handful of developers at Xerox and together we created a sales model that would be a key component for not only the sales force at Xerox, but their clients as well. It was a model that would be used for decades and...
“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!