Mark Matteson

His name is Joe Girard. He was born in the ghettos of Detroit. He started out as a shoeshine boy, then newspaper delivery boy, then assembling stoves. He eventually began building homes. That business failed. His father told him he would never amount to anything. At thirty five, he was married, had two kids and […]

Prior to the great Depression, an 800 pound gorilla ruled the cereal jungle….Post. Launched in 1897, Post Grape-Nuts dominated the marketplace leading up to 1929. Then the crash. As the Great Depression tightened its grip, that gorilla dropped its bananas. They were cash hungry. In a move that can only be described as a cautionary […]

Form the Habit of Selling Yourself On What You Are Selling Its really believing in your product or service. Its understanding what it can really do for you clients. By developing this level of empathy, it fosters the respect for the buyer’s good sense. Form the Habit of Continuous Study Learning more can help you […]

This week I decided to break tradition and write in the third person. This profile of a sales superstar is too long for one post so I broke it up into two parts. He was born in 1912, one of nine children. His parents fled the ghettos of Russia and settled in the midwest. By […]

In 2006, I had made several presentations at Hamburger University in Oak Brook IL. It’s quite a place. It’s a world class training facility that is rented out to corporations. It’s a four star hotel that Hyatt runs. It’s a museum and a testimony to Ray Kroc’s innovative and extra-ordinary contribution to business. In the […]

In a recent tele-coaching session with an east coast contractor, I was reminded of a simple idea I stumbled upon 25 years ago when I was a technician and first learning how to sell. I had just changed a compressor and the customer was complaining about the cost of the compressor change. I smiled. The […]

Some of us are warnings, some of us are examples. Everyone is always glad to see you; some when you arrive, others when you leave. Sounds a little like something Mark Twain would have written. I was reading some of Samuel Clemens again recently at the library located at the Stehekin Valley Ranch last weekend. […]

It was a beautiful sunny day in Seattle, the third week in March 2003. I was headed to Starbucks attached to the local grocery store. March Madness and Girl Scout Cookies were everywhere. I was thinking about the days activities ahead. Two young Girl Scout merchants, 11 year olds and their moms where just setting […]

It was the fall of 2000. I had been in Dallas, Texas for four days conducting seminars with a fine group of successful contractors. Sales training. We covered all aspects of the sales cycle: suspects, prospects, qualifying, writing proposals, asking for the sale and following up. I had come back with a slight southern drawl. […]

It was the summer of 1992, my Dad and I were playing a game of cribbage. He was stealing points from me (his way of ‘Teaching’ me the game) when he grimaced. I thought it was a pang of conscious about cheating at cards. I was wrong. He took his shoes off and started rubbing […]

It was 1990. My new job was to sell Commercial Service Agreements. It was a fine company. They were growing. They wanted to expand their Service Base. I had a territory that no one wanted. It was the farthest away from the office. “There is no business there!” was all I heard from everyone when […]