ARE YOUR CSRS PROVIDING REAL CUSTOMER SERVICE? by Jack Fries Are your CSRs doing what you expect? How do your customers perceive the service that theyre receiving? Does the l...

ARE YOUR CSRsSELLING MORE YET? by Grace Bauer Are you maximizing your agencys ability to touch your clients? In this article Grace Bauer offers guidelines t...

ARE YOUR MESSAGES REMEMBERED LONG TERM? by Patricia Berry Here we stand: The possibilities of e-mail messaging in one hand, the nature of memory in the other. Here's the critical quest...

ARE YOUR PRODUCERS SUBSIDIZED? by Chris Burand If you dont think youre subsidizing your producers, you might need to think again. The average agency spends b...

If you’re in sales, you know the feeling. It’s the middle of the night about two weeks after starting a new job. You were enthusiastic and could hardly wait to get going. Now, your head is full of doubts. You try to shove them aside, but they don’t go away. “Everything is new,” you tell yourself. “I just need to give it a little more time.” However, the doubts keep coming back.
The gap between what you were told about the job and what’s actually happening grows wider by the day. After about three weeks, you finally ask yourself, “Have I made a mistake?”

If you're in sales, you can identify with this situation - about two weeks after starting a new job, you begin to doubt your decision. You detect a widening gap between what you were told to expect and what actually occurs. After only a month on the job, you conclude, 'I think I made a mistake.' You're probably right, because salespersons seem to be more prone to selecting the wrong job. Too often, their profession's tendency to stress the positive and minimize negative factors extend into their approach in choosing a job.

In spite of 19th-hole braggadocio about rising sales figures, bottom-line results, and upcoming prospects, businesses do stall and stagnate. Streamline.com was a raging Internet stock until it ran into a wall. Kodak used to be a Wall Street favorite, and now it's struggling to find itself. P&G once had 99.44 % acceptance; now the tide seems to have turned. For years, Xerox set the standard; then it lost direction.

BACKLOG! ARE YOU KEEPING UP? by Grace Bauer Does your office have a serious backlog problem? If you answered 'no' to this question, think again! Most of the offices I talk to every...

BEST PRACTICES AGENCIES: THE BEST OF THE BEST by Tom Doran As a management consultant and one of the authors of The Best Practices Study, it's sometimes a temptation to become...

BEYOND BEST PRACTICES: ARE YOU EXCEPTIONAL? by Tom Doran What are the five most crucial success factors to which you would attribute your success? This is the fundamental Best Pract...