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This Equals That....

For sales associates and leaders everywhere

The numbers never lie. When you step on the scale, you know. When you open your bank statement, it’s right there to see.

The same is true for sales. When you look at your sales results, you know whether you are on track to make goal or not. If you are, great. If you aren’t, it’s a function of actions: the quantity and quality of the actions you have already taken.

If you want to get back on track to make goal, you need to take more actions. If you h…

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Q2 2021

Q2 2021

For sales associates and leaders everywhere

 Q1 2021 is now behind us. If you hit your quarterly goal, congratulations! If you missed it, check your performance statistics and you will find what was insufficient that kept you from  hitting your target.

The obvious challenges most retail and trade showrooms are facing right now are supply chain shortages and insufferable lead times. This is what the remainder of the year will look like, so it’s critical that we manage what we can contr…

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Slipcover Lessons

 

                                           

 

I started this project about a month ago, although how much time it was going to take to complete the project remained an unspecified mystery. Since this was the first slipcover I ever made, I spent time researching HOW to do this so that the result would be respectable. The ticking stripe fabric was a couple of years old, because I originally thought I would have someone do the work for me. But the pandemic arrived and my travel schedule slowed…

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Looking ahead at 2021

Happy December!

The year is almost over - can you believe it? And as it draws to a close it’s time to start looking at what to create for 2021. I will be posting an opportunity next week for you to sign up for Goal Setting Mini Series for retail showrooms and another for trade showrooms (maybe a third for independent designers? Let me know and I will add it!) with directions to participate. Please keep your eyes open for this and I hope you will join us!

In the meantime, start to consider what…

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Painted Furniture and Halloween!

Hey everyone!

I will be at The Drawing Room in downtown New Bedford on Saturday, 10/31 from 10-2 working with Anthi and talking about a wonderful trend that is still with us: painting fine quality vintage and antique furniture in new, wonderful colors! Here is an example from my home - vintage Heywood Wakefield Windsor chairs painted BM Ravishing Red! That was the color that was ultimately chosen. The first one was too orange, so the painter was able to rub through the topcoat to show the orang…

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A New Month

For retail sales professionals, everywhere 


For some of you, the month of May was the best month in the history of your company. There was pent up demand for product, often in-stock merchandise, and purchases were made online and in person. May didn’t make up for losses in April and March when the pandemic drove us all indoors and away from others, but it did help regain some ground. Congratulations to those of you who made the changes you needed to make to take advantage of opportunities as …

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"Use it up…..


For sales professionals, everywhere

…wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

That is a World War II era saying that described and directed behavior that those living through that time followed until they died.  

When you can’t easily run to the store because you have a craving for mint chocolate chip ice cream and your wear it out.jpgbetter half-finished the last of it yesterday, you do without or choose another way to satisfy your fancy. When you fall in love with those new AG jeans on Nordstrom R…

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“Since...”

For sales professionals, everywhere

As often happen, “Since….” occurred to me on a coaching call with one of the Artistic Tile showroom teams.

We were discussing how to construct and direct a designer to not offer as many selections, but rather pare down to 2-3. This was in response to a designer asking for FOURTEEN samples of granite from slabs!!!  All agreed that 14 was 11 too many but how to say No and still appear willing to find the right choice was our challenge.

I had been having…

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Do Complete Work

For everyone, everywhere
 
While it might be customary to complain about your local cable company, I had the pleasure of having a Comcast technician come to my house/office today. My reason for calling was that CNN was pixelating and troubleshooting it myself and working with a technician over the phone proved unsuccessful.
After a couple of jokes about why CNN was the only channel doing this (and actually, ESPN was also not working, but who knew that???), Sean determined it was a loose conne…

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Ch-ch-ch-changin’

For sales professionals, everywhere

This really has been an amazing time. There are things we are aware of immediately: loneliness for our loved ones, the masks, and distancing, the anxiety of what to do and when to do it, plus, plus. We see them, we feel them, we hear them - we can’t miss them. It’s the construct in which we are living and the actions we are taking within that reality. 

And there are the things that aren’t scorchingly obvious: the reveals in our business and the model its…

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