The Rise of Insight Selling

The new sales environment favors creative and adaptable sellers who challenge customers with disruptive insights into their business—and offer unexpected solutions.

Great article written by Matthew Dixon in the HBR, well worth the read, especially for any business owners or sales leaders.

https://hbr.org/2013/11/dismantling-the-sales-machine

The 2 Things You Must Do In Every Job Search

During a passive or active job search people often approach their network the wrong way.

We're all familiar with the classic distinction between strong ties and weak ties. Strong ties are your closest friends and weak ties are your acquaintances. Most of us when we need help go to strong ties because its comfortable to reach out. Often times weak ties are more helpful than strong ties because strong ties have redundant information. Strong ties know all the same people and information as you. But acquaintances can open up new information within different circles of friends. There's evidence that supports that you're 58% more likely to get a job from a weak tie than a strong tie.

The other way to improve your chances of finding a new job is make your network powerful by reaching out to a dormant tie. These are the people you used to know in the last 3 to 5 years (past colleague, former college roommate, etc.) The dormant ties have been meeting different people and learning new things over the past few years that will help open up new opportunities, plus its more comfortable to reach out to these ties because you have that shared experience or common history. And its certainly a lot easier to reconnect than starting a new connection from scratch.

Bottom line, most of us could do a better job of reaching out to those weak and dormant ties during the job search. 

Insight taken from the best selling book "Give and Take" by Adam Grant. A must read for every business professional.

Ask More of Yourself

I am grateful for the birth of our new born son, Sebastián Mateo. And I'm certainly thankful to have finished the MBA program at Notre Dame with my wife this May. The growth was certainly worth getting uncomfortable.

Be Anti-Social (Media)

Social media is a great way to stay engaged, but it's also a great way to not get other things done. How many of you check your FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts every hour? I'm now trying to set limits for my social media use, setting specific times of the day to check updates. By scheduling social time, you’re actively managing your online life, not compulsively checking in on auto pilot.

Secrets of the Most Productive People

We can make ourselves crazy trying to eliminate the waste, or we can embrace the daily chaos and use it to our best advantage.

Here's a couple of lessons from the front lines;

Time I get up: 6am

First thing I do each morning: Spend a few minutes praying in bed and then straight to the shower. I do my best thinking in this spot.

Apps and Other Assists: If I have one thing with me its my iPhone, and I'm always utilizing the LinkedIn app. Between work email and the business Facebook (LinkedIn), those two capture the majority of my attention.

Philosophy: Success on the outside means nothing unless you also have success within.

Last thing I do each night: Brush my teeth and spend time 15-30 minutes with my wife reading in bed.

Time I go to bed: I don't go to bed at the same time every night. Every day has a different demand. Most often I'm asleep by 11pm.