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This is the second note on setting realistic and reasonable goals, starting with covering your basic needs each month. Now that you have your basement expenses (missed last week? Find more info HERE) established, let’s look at what you need to write in sales to accommodate that number.

For this example, I’m going to assume you are paid on written sales.

If your “nut”—what you need to bring home—is $5,000 (your net income), add 25% to that number to calculate your gross income before taxes. Tha…

Happy New Year! Let’s make this year the best one yet.

This is the first note in a short series on goal setting. You might have already set your goals for the new year—in which case, congratulations. Or you might have started them but not completed them yet, which is great, too. Or maybe you can’t really finish your goals and targets until you get your individual contribution-to-the-team numbers…also good.

Wherever you are, you are here—which is the best place to be.

Before you can hit a targ…

The final posting of the series — and of the year.
I hope 2025 was a good one for you, with lessons learned and successes celebrated. Remember, not all wins are monetary.

As you proactively create the new year, consider what matters most to you that you want to bring into your life or expand beyond where things currently are.
Also ask yourself: what do you want to reduce?
Screen time, waistline, debt…
Make those part of your intentions and your plan for 2026.
If you can dream it and plan for it, you…

Selling the Intangibles: Why This Is Where Sales Are Being Won (or Lost) Right Now

If you’re a sales manager, you don’t need another reminder that sales are harder right now.

Traffic is lighter.
Customers are more cautious.
Price pressure shows up earlier and more often.

And what I’m seeing everywhere is this: Salespeople can still sell the product — but they’re hesitating on the conversations that actually protect margin.

So let's talk about it!

I recently hosted a live session for sales ma…

This is the fourth post in our December series on Being Proactive — please catch up on the earlier installments if you missed them. Each one builds on the last.

In the spirit of being proactive — and in the spirit of the holidays — let’s take a look at setting goals for the new year, and a simple process to do that well.

Start by evaluating this year.
This is the fourth post on Being Proactive… please catch up on the previous posts you may have missed.

In the spirit of being proactive — and es…

This is the third installment in our series on Being Proactive. If you missed the previous two, I encourage you to go back and read them — they set the foundation for everything we’ll talk about today.

If you are a salesperson in a showroom (retail or trade), or if you manage one, it’s likely that you rely heavily on incoming opportunities — traffic — for new business. That’s understandable.

It’s also understandable that you may consider your greatest competitors to be other showrooms offering…

This is the second installment in our December series on Being Proactive. In the first newsletter, we defined proactive as taking responsibility for one’s own life — and all the elements that come with it.
Now, let’s go a little deeper into what it looks like in practice.

We often hear being proactive used interchangeably with taking initiative, which is accurate — even if it’s not the full definition.

Consider the many ways initiative shows up:

• Creating instead of waiting
• Going after what …

This is the first in our December series on Being Proactive. Before we talk about actions, habits, or outreach, it’s helpful to revisit a term that’s become so commonplace — maybe even overused — that we’ve lost some of its power.

Stephen R. Covey introduced “proactive” in Habit 1 of his landmark book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He wrote that human beings are responsible for their own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate fee…

This is the final post in our month of gratitude… in the last week of the month… before the last month of this year.

A Season of Reflection

I am grateful for both the common and the extraordinary gifts in my life — for the work I do and for the clients who trust me to do it. I am grateful for the life that this work affords me, for the opportunities it supports, and for the ability to share what I learn with others walking their own path.

I am grateful for where our paths merge — and for wher…

Every month, I look forward to gathering for the Sales BE Series. These sessions always ground me, and our November conversation on gratitude did exactly that. What began as a seasonal topic quickly opened into a deeper discussion about presence, appreciation, team culture, and the small habits that shape our daily work.

I started by admitting that my own gratitude practice had slipped this year. I wasn’t as present or patient as usual, and I could feel it. At a friend’s suggestion, I picked up…