Every sales team is made up of individuals with different strengths and weaknesses, but too many sales managers try to run their teams as if they're a standardized block.

It's easy to understand why. Sales management is a high-str...

No more excuses.

The pandemic's first year gave leaders some slack: The situation was novel, the challenges unique. Everyone was flying blind.

Those days are over. We're still confronting the crisis, but the adrenaline...

Your sales team has identified and engaged with a promising new overseas distributor. The group is thrilled. They show you how the relationship could improve access to customers and boost company growth. But are you informed as to whether the pot...

The time is right for smart businesses to plan for life after quarantine. COVID-19 vaccination rates are up, infection rates are down, and states are launching more plans to re-open the economy.

While it's liberating to consider the...

I deeply believe in being customer centric when it comes to selling. Really understanding the needs of buyers usually leads to a good outcome for both parties and to the kind of relationship that results in repeat business.

But there...

There's nothing like a global pandemic to force a reimagining of one's business. The pharmaceutical industry can't keep doing what it's been doing for years.

The global impact of a pandemic has revealed the opportunity and limitations...

Every now and then the geopolitical pendulum makes a decisive swing and the effects reverberate through economies as well as manufacturers and their supply chains. This feels like one of those moments as a new U.S. administration takes office wit...

If anyone hoped for a quick thaw in China relations under President Joe Biden, they've already been disappointed.

The early rhetoric on China coming from the White House has remained tough. The Biden administration is in no hurry to...

One of America's great economic strengths historically has been the relative ease with which workers have switched jobs and climbed the ladder of opportunity.

In more recent years, though, labor mobility has been on the decline as w...

Almost every company claims to put the customer first, but the reality is that this business promise gets a lot of lip service.

Despite clear evidence showing that customer-centered businesses grow faster and out-perform competitors,...

Life sciences companies tend to consider themselves leaders when it comes to compliance policies.

In one sense they're right. The close sales relations between their distribution agents and state-linked doctors and hospitals have lo...

The "Future of Work" has rightly become a hot topic over the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation and disrupted whole industries.

But the phrase risks lulling employers into a false sense o...

For those who miss flying - and even those weary road warriors who don't - the sheer magnitude and longevity of the COVID-19 pandemic raises these questions: When will flying return to normal? Will airlines be able to offer all the same fli...

Until a crisis erupts, cybersecurity issues don't get a lot of attention in many corporate boardrooms. The topic is often viewed as a box to be checked while directors devote their real focus to the business's core financial numbers and goals...

There are few things that trouble me more than organizations claiming they can't find diverse talent because there's a "pipeline problem."

All one needs to do is look at the facts. By 2030, Hispanics will represent 21% of the...

Sometimes even the gold standard still isn't enough. Since 1995, company leaders and their corporate counsel have leaned on a single, well-respected measure to gauge vulnerability to bribery and corruption risks around th...

Not that long ago, the process for filling orders or assembling a product involved mind-numbing tasks done over and over again, to the point the worker really didn't have to think.

Building a car, for instance, was essentially a han...

Salespeople face great pressure to focus more on the competition than the client. It's an unforgiving business world out there, and sales reps have quarterly sales targets to meet and market share to gain. We all want to win, right?

It's been one of the most tumultuous, uncertain years in modern history, and yet - at least in my line of work - we now have some form of certainty just in time for tax season.

With Democrats owning a voting majority in Congress...

The 2020 pandemic sent many businesses scrambling to protect their employees and pivot their operations to retain their customers. This crisis presented more challenges and opportunities over the course of a few months than most businesses see in...