Ah the most wonderful time of the year - FOOTBALL season!  Football is not only the greatest sport, ever, but it is also a great metaphor for sales.  In Football you have a quarterback that gets the credit for the win or the loss, but it really takes a team.  In Sales you have the sales person (insert new trendy name here, but in the end it is a sales person) and then you have the team (engineers, administration, management) that is necessary for the sales process.  Try doing without the team to back you up and you will realize that failure is inevitable.To win in football you need a touchdown, to win in sales you need a (wait for it) sale!  While they both look easy to accomplish no one can really understand until they are in the trenches, fighting it out play after play (or day after day).  So remember you might think you are a superstar, but without a great team to back you up winning will not happen (just ask Dan Marino).

Good Customer Service

I was thinking (and watching) while out in public lately.  What makes good customer service?  Is it always being there?  Is it answering all their questions?  Or is it something else?  I think at the heart of really good customer service is just listening to the client/customer.  Most people want to be listened to and then helped - but without good listening skills everything else just falls apart.
Are you and your team good listeners?  What can you do to improve listening?  Think I will dive into this topic more later but a starting point is this - start at home.  Who better to have help with listening than your family.  Trust me - my wife and kids tell me every time I'm not listening well to them.  My oldest son used to grab my head and make me look him in the eyes when he thought I wasn't listening well enough.  Good feedback for us all.