I have a special file on my computer where I store passing thoughts that should or could be additions to this blog.  Way back in January of this year, I had an idle hour or so in a cavernous international airport.  It was late afternoon and being an intemperate sort of guy, I could have easily justified a conversation with Jim Beam or Jack Daniels in one of the terminal bars.  The truth is, I was headed that way when I saw a nearly empty little conference area and instead decided to invest my time in thought.   Over the past 10 weeks of our coronavirus-based crisis, I have repeatedly visited my notes on inside sales.  Believing recessions and other economic storms serve to accelerate change, I feel many of the things on the inside sales “wish list” will soon move from “nice to have” to mandatory practices.  With this in mind, let’s review some points tied to inside sales. Customers judge our service on inside sales behavior. Long ago a customer commen...

Make no mistake, customers are thinking and behaving differently today than just a couple years ago. When I was a  rookie sales guy, the primary source of product information for my customers was their favorite salesperson. Introducing customers to new products, providing catalogs for additional product data searches and demonstrations of new features (and benefits) of existing products was job one. Early on, I discovered the salesperson who provided the best and most valuable information held a position of grace and favor. #ASKGUDMUNDUR: The world's  first human search engine. Once I worked my way into the favored spot, I became the trusted “human search engine” used to find solutions and new products. Here’s how it went. The customer described their problem, I took notes, drew pictures and scurried off to research a list of possible solutions. A week or two later, I returned with a few catalog data sheets, a dozen or so pictures and we refined the “search” and ...