If you are a parent (or are on social media), you know that it’s back to school time. Children and young adults are busy getting their class schedules, books and school supplies to prepare for another year of learning and growth. What a great time for us industry professionals to think about “going back to…
Greg Muzzillo
Most of us businesspeople have great ideas from time to time. The typical response to our good ideas is to seek lots of affirmation. In the pursuit of affirmation, businesspeople reach out to their friends to get feedback. There are two big problems with this. First, your friends don’t understand your business very well, and…
This is a very serious question: Do you love you? Do you love you just the way you are right now? Many people seem like they don’t really love who they are right now. Perhaps they aren’t happy with their health, or income, relationships, etc. It’s easy to think that you will love yourself and…
We’ve all heard people say, “Enough is enough.” The person saying it wants something to stop because they can no longer accept or deal with it. We’ve all said it from time to time. The truth is that “enough is enough” is also how most people live their lives. No matter where you are in…
Fellow distributor owners and sales reps, have you ever stopped to think how unbelievably fortunate we are to be distributors? We don’t need to own any manufacturing equipment. We don’t need to own any manufacturing plants. We don’t need to hire manufacturing employees. We don’t need to invest in any inventory. All we need is…
Business and life can be stressful. Most folks I know work hard to achieve great things in the future. And live with great regrets about past failures. Few of us know how to just enjoy the present, which is all we really have. The past is gone. The future isn’t here yet. The present is…
Every day holds many opportunities for great choices and fresh starts. This spring is a great time to ask yourself, “Sow what?” What are you sowing every day to assure an awesome harvest in your business and your life? Most amazing things don’t happen overnight. They need time to germinate and grow. Does the farmer expect…
I talk with lots of people that want to change—change their income, change their health, change their relationships. Change is hard. In fact, change is impossible. You have proven this to yourself over and over again. Most people who want change want it fast. C’mon—we have fast food, instant coffee, same-day delivery from Amazon. We want…
To what lengths do you go to protect your valuables? Lock your home? Lock your car? Security system and cameras on your home? Alarm system on your car? Many people I know do all the above and more. But they are leaving the door wide open for the biggest thief of all. Who is the…
No matter where you are in this business, how much you have accomplished or what level of success you have achieved, there is always a next level. Many of you reading this may have the mental scars and bruises to show for your hard work. For some, those scars and bruises may be piling up…
To me, it seems like many people choose to stay behind their desks all day because they are too proud to call prospects for appointments. That’s a real bad place to be proud. Too proud to pick up the phone and try to make an appointment, too proud to listen to suppliers that want to…
Buy a mirror. There are two kinds of people in the world. And you can learn a great deal by their responses to handling a misstep. Let’s say you are going on a walk and trip on a crack in the sidewalk. The first kind of person gets critical of the homeowner with the crack…
What’s your reputation? How can you fix or improve it fast? About 30 years ago, Proforma had a reputation problem. We had been in business for 10 years, and the distributorship was growing fast along with our new franchise business model. Actually, our growth was a little too fast for our capital structure, resulting in…
In sales, one of the biggest challenges in converting a prospect to a customer, or a customer to a client is getting more “face time” to continuously explain our value proposition. This is where most sales folks fail. Most sales folks, even seasoned professionals, don’t appreciate the importance of creating “excuses” to get back in…
I love the saying, “success begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” I’m all for pushing oneself to the edge of their comfort zone, but not beyond. This is especially true when prospecting for new customers. It’s natural for most sales folks to want to reach for the stars and secure large marquee accounts.…
