The Sales Manager, during the course of his presentation in the Sales Conference, placed a black dot in the middle of the large white board. He then asked the group of almost sixty participants “What do they see on the white board”? The entire group with almost unanimity replied “a black dot”. Only one or

Interviews for a sales engineer were being held in a highly reputable organisation. Apparently, there was only one vacancy but at least forty candidates were lined up in a queue for selection. Boys were nervous with parched lips! All of a sudden one boy left the queue, scribbled something on a piece of paper, walked

The salesman was brimming with confidence. The engineering consultant of perhaps the best organisation in Pakistan was asking one question after another; the Director Technical and Director Projects and the whole team of engineers was bombarding the salesman with highly technical and commercial queries. The salesman was equal to the task. He knew his product;

I taught strategic management at a business school for a while. On the first page of the book, the line which caught the attention of the teacher and every student was “He did it because he didn’t know that it can’t be done”. Later the book also taught another great lesson “One who says

Here is a true story of a marine engine salesman. He used to work from five to nine (not nine to five). While the whole world would be fast asleep, he would be up and preparing notes for the day. There were no laptops, no emails etc., he would write fax messages for his Principal

Most of the times, potential customers are busy with their daily lives, working for their hard-earned livelihood and then a salesman appears; an insurance girl or a travel agent calls or someone selling a property knocks on your door - it appears salespeople are after your money. It’s not because the customers don’t want

Some salesmen proudly claim that they can even sell IGLOO (ice) to the Eskimos. This amounts to saying that they can throw dust into the eyes of their customers and persuade them to go against their own interests and accept something unnecessary or useless. Let’s assume that you are sitting with an Eskimo and

'Two men looked out from the prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.' When life gives you lemons, make lemonade is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons suggest sourness or difficulty in life; making lemonade is turning

An elderly person used to tell his children that when you smile at the world, it smiles back to you and likewise when you fume and frown to it, it fumes and frowns back to you. It is said that when you smile, the whole world smiles with you and when you weep, you weep

One of the best TV and film actresses of Pakistan is Saba Qamar. But here we are talking about another kind of SABA. I first came across with this SABA while doing my sales and business communication classes. Dale Carnegie used to say that success, prosperity and fame gravitates to the one who communicates well.