Almost everyone has a childhood memory from which there is no escape. It could have been from being in, or even witness to, a car accident. Or the loss of a parent, aunt, or uncle. Most of those memories are private, deeply buried within one’s psyche. My terrible childhood memory was, unfortunately, public. Now, some…
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How One Reluctant Reader Became a Published Author (and Lived to Tell the Tale) A funny thing happened on my way to being a book author. I don’t read books, as I never had the patience. The family joke was that I would read the first page and then the last page. After accomplishing that…
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Replace Empty Apologies with Genuine Accountability For over three of my six-plus decades on this planet, I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have cringed hearing people cop out with these three disingenuous phrases: My bad Everything happens for a reason, and It is what it is. Yes, a genuine cop…
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I learned, in some cases, the hard way, that the quietest person listening in the meeting is generally the brightest person in the room. Early in my sales career, over forty years ago in the early 1980s, the combination of recently having the warehouse in the rearview mirror and me being excited to be in…
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From Broken Bones to Big Risks: Learning the Value of Jumping In…Or Flying During my childhood, I spent a decent amount of time in the cast room of Evanston Hospital, what with four broken arms by the time I was twelve. Dr. Thomas Sweeney, who passed away a few years ago, was literally my orthopedic…
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“Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.” ~ Joe MacMillan, Halt and Catch Fire (2014 – 2017, four seasons) As crazy as it seems, as parallel as my career was to the overall theme of Halt and Catch Fire, I never had the chance to watch it, starting with…
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Among my two key success principles have always been Know Thy Customer and Know Thy Competitor. However, while critical, that’s merely the surface layer. Understand that the competition extends beyond customers and vendors. You want to dive deeper and Know Thy Customer’s Competitor. Why Knowing Your Customer’s Competitor Gives You an Unfair Advantage There is…
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When I look back at my life, “The Story of Jeff,” and how all of this happened, I realize it was all about GE (General Electric). How a Surprise Referral from GE Launched a Multi-Million-Dollar Business And it wasn’t me finding them, it was a Hewlett Packard Eastern Regional Sales Rep — that I had…
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