Think about the career advice that you received when you were younger. Or advice that you’ve given young people in your life. Most of the time, “follow your dreams” is one of the many things that young people will hear as they enter the workforce.

CEOs and executives often wonder how much they really need to focus on sales. It shouldn’t outweigh their focus on other parts of their business, right?
Here’s where you’re probably scratching your head, if you’re a salesperson. If you or your sales team aren’t out there making sales, the rest of the company doesn’t have any money for the other aspects of business!

Wondering how you can gain real long-term growth? Most leaders at some point find that they (or their team) would benefit from significant professional growth but aren’t sure where to start.

When we made the decision at Baxter to go through purposeful change to get better outcomes from our teams, there were some things we didn’t think about initially.

A couple of years ago, we became frustrated with how transactional our business model was at Baxter. We found ourselves chasing a lot of competitors with our marketing tactics, without a lot thought for our audience. We were putting a lot of energy into work for residential clients, which almost inevitably is more of a transaction than a relationship.

A Customer Advisory Board is a great way to figure out what your customers’ felt needs are. That can help you serve them better, but it will also give you a better idea of what your prospects’ felt needs are.

I work in the IT industry. Chances are good that you don’t. But whether you do or you don’t, I bet you want to grow your business.

In sales, you know that you have to start with bonding and rapport if you want to move forward in any direction. We’ve increasingly found that it’s the same in the nonprofit world.

We often talk with local businesses about what we can do for them, as part of our mission at Creative Oklahoma: to develop, promote and celebrate Oklahoma’s creativity and innovation in education, commerce and culture.

My sales background heavily influenced my entrepreneurial journey. Two lessons that I learned from sales really helped me start and grow this company: valuing relationships, and being persistent and present. Here’s how that has played out during the growth of WeGoLook.