My Best Sales Questions post has been pretty popular and a lot of people have downloaded and started using the questions. That article, combined with my What Makes a Sales Rock Star Candidate? post, 4Q13 being imminent and 2014 inevitable has led to me having a bunch of conversations with salespeople and business owners that want to finish 2013 strong and make 2014 their best year ever.

A new thing...

Before I got into sales development and coaching, I was a sales development and coaching junkie. Almost 30 years ago, Dave Kurlan created his first Black Belt Group and invited me to be part of it. I felt pretty special because at the time he invited 12 out of a field of about 1,000.

A recent LinkedIn discussion reminded me about a post that I wrote about the penalties for spamming LinkedIn Groups. I was curious as to whatever happened to him. So, I looked him up on LinkedIn. Shortly after LinkedIn shut him down, he closed his business and got a job. Now, honestly he had other issues, but the point is that we are all inundated by content. Some is truly remarkable, but some is worse than spam.

Job Interview:

I stole this from Pete Caputa and adjusted it to suit my cause.

Suppose that you wanted to grow sales. According to the Inbound Marketing folks, you'll go to Google and do a search. What will you search for?

Have you started thinking about 2014 yet? Have you started thinking about how much money you want to make? How many new customers you want? Sales volume? Goal setting is complex and should never be done alone.

Have you heard the story of Billy Ray Harris? Back in February, he was panhandling on a Kansas City street when a lady, accidentally dropped a diamond engagement ring in his cup. When he noticed it, he thought about selling it, but decided to hang onto it in case she came back. Three days later, she did come back and was very grateful when he gave her her ring.