I follow marketing news, so you don’t have to.  Here are favorite rules and tips from marketing gurus.  Enjoy! Three Marketing Rules 1) Selling is Out:   People have been oversold.  They’re cynical and suspicious.  Traditional “selling” doesn’t work anymore.  It turns people off. 2) Attention is Rare:  Research shows we’re bombarded with 3,000 – 20,000 marketing

What the heck is “Fluency”?  How does it deliver the win? Fluency (a psychology term) indicates how easily people read, understand and interact with something.  The more something is fluent, the more we like it and judge it to be good. If it’s unappealing or confusing, we think “BAD”, no matter how good it actually is. It’s important that prospects

I’ve been encouraging advisors across the country to talk to women who are centers of influence when they want to develop more business.  Stop telling & selling.  Ask for help. Women don’t mind asking for directions and we don’t mind being asked (it’s practical). One of my financial advisor clients did this with great success. Here’s

We all want new business.  Sadly some are still prospecting old-school and bombing out. You’ll get a good laugh from these fumblers who killed their chances in 60 seconds. Read on for a laugh & 3 Tips. Sales Death by Wise-ASSumption I was recently at a trade show with my husband.  As we walked the

Recently, I was privileged to work with a national team on leadership and coaching. Coincidentally, I received a sample assessment that’s supposed to measure a Leader’s ability as a Coach. I took it.  Guess what? If you’re a good Leader, likely you’ll get a poor score. The sloppy psychometric design rewards coaching and punishes leading.  Unfortunately,

Teams are built by the 3 Pillars of Team Success (Part 1).  They’re also destroyed by 3 deadly poisons.  These can surface at anytime in the life of a team.  Great teams inoculate with the cures before they’re infected and maintain a discipline of prevention. Beware 3 Deadly Team Poisons: Conflicting Interests   Partners who fundamentally disagree on what

People frequently ask me to share the secrets to great teaming.  They want the perfect formula.  I want to deliver and here’s the secret.  Successful teams can be very different, but the good ones have mastered three keys to success. Successful teams can be tight knit; everything is joined like a close family.  Other good teams

LinkedIn is the place to find professionals and it’s got huge internet power.  In fact, your LinkedIn profile may pop-up before your primary website and create the all important first impression. Unfortunately, many advisors are not aware of default settings that are too important to ignore.  The defaults buried in your profile pump out BAD PR unless you adjust them

Many believe that sales success depends on being (or becoming) an Extrovert.  This belief is so widespread, it’s become an assumption.  New research reveals the best sales personality and it may surprise you! Adam Grant, professor at The Wharton School, conducted a study on which personalities  were actually the most successful at sales.  Here’s the bottom line:

J.D. Powers 2013 investor survey, shows DIY investors are less satisfied with self-directed platforms despite more online tools and information.  More is not better as the survey describes: “Investment firms are now offering more online tools and information for self-directed investors than ever before.  That fact is apparently both a blessing and a curse, as the