This Wednesday,  December 3, 2014 we’ll be launching an online sales course that will truly marry the traditional ways of selling with many of the new ways you hear me talking about on this blog and on my podcasts.
There are well over 100+ tips in 8 sessions that we deliver live and then send the […]

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Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

This week’s quick tip is a must listen to tip!
I’m dead serious too because if you’re like most people, you lose time and energy on something that will truly hurt you as a sales professional!
How much time?
How about in the neighborhood of 15 hours each month?
Did I get your attention?
That’s all I’m going to say […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

The other day I was making my way towards a busy line at the bank when a woman started to cut me off. In that instant I remembered that it’s the holiday season and stepped aside and said “After you Ma’am.” By “Ma’am” I may or may not have meant “line cutting bitch” but I […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

Needless to say, today is a huge shopping day and while, we’re at it, so was last night!
So somewhere between slapping down your credit card for gifts for friends, family and the like;
Please consider giving yourself a gift!
Stop by Castain’s Rock Star University and check out the numerous ways you can end this year stronger!
Here are […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

Today, I decided to count my blessings a bit more than I usually do!
I am thankful for another Thanksgiving with my wife and children. By the way, I asked Laura out way back in 1983 so that’s a long time and hell of a lot of turkey!
I am thankful that everyday I get to do […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

There are those who decide to take the day off before a holiday break.
There are those who chose to work right up until the holiday break.
And there are those who do neither and just check out.
They deprive themselves of the gift of a day off or the productivity of getting things done.
Today is almost history […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

Networking isn’t about who is in the room, it’s about who they know.  Rumor has it that the average human being knows 250 people.  When you attend a networking event….there might be 40-50 people in the room.  For sake of argument, let’s say this hypothetical event has 50 attendees.

When you enter this networking event, you need to asses who is in attendance and try to find the right people to talk to.  You don’t want to be that pez dispenser!  Find 2-6 people that you don’t know that you can chat with.

The goal…Your goal at this event is to find 2 or 3 quality connections that have a strong network of people, and who might be willing to connect you with them because you are an ideal connection and referral source.

As you begin working the room for these 2-3 people….always start with how you can help them.  If you truly care about connecting others, then your time and turn will come, and when it does, it will be a good connection for you.

Focus on getting the 2-3 people to agree to meet for coffee.  Here is where you can get much more in depth into their business and start to understand who you can connect them with.  When your turn comes, you can then get in depth as well, which will likely result in a strong connection from this person.

OK…so when you look at it on the surface it does matter a little who is in the room, because you want to network with folks that have connections and with folks that understand networking.  But you should never look at the folks in the room as your customers.  While it’s true that some folks will become your customers….stop looking for customers and start looking for referral sources who will send you multiple referrals in a given year!

I was facilitating a discussion at an executive retreat recently and one of the participant’s shared something interesting.
We had been discussing the qualities of a rock star leader and they suggested that a true rock star leader see’s speed bumps to opportunities while the rest of the world sees a roadblock!
It made me think about […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

On December 3rd,  we’re going to be kicking off our last online sales program of the year! Now you might be thinking “No big deal, Castain does these like every two months so I’ll just do it in January or some time next year”
Well that’s partially correct but . . .
The price will be going […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

My driveway seemed quite large that morning back in 1995. I remember stopping dead in my tracks when it hit me that both my cars had been repossessed. My world fell apart that day and left me without my cars, my business, $60,000 in debt and without any degree of self esteem.
With one small child […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

Every email, call, letter etc can’t always be about securing an appointment or simply buying from you.
You need to change up those messages.
So instead of writing this week off as unproductive or doing something really lame like spending the next 3 days doing “admin” stuff, how about;
Calling potential clients/clients and people in your network to […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

This week’s quick tip is all about leveraging a holiday week in a really cool way.
How cool?
How about being in two places at once?
As in enjoying time with your family and fighting mobs at those Black Friday sales and yet;
Still keeping up appearances!
But there, I’ve said too much so you’ll just have to listen to […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

As we head into a holiday week here in the states there are some people who are going to make a poor choice!
I’m talking about those who are about to work on “Admin Stuff” this Monday – Wednesday!
On the surface, it seems like a good thing to do because
a) They didn’t take the whole week […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).

inConcert Web Solutions will be closed Thursday, November 27th and Friday, November 28th. Our office will reopen on Monday, December 1st. All website maintenance requests and website changes that are requested within this time period will be completed upon our reopening in the order that they were received.

Have a fun, safe holiday weekend!

Whenever I mention mailing something out to a potential client, most sales people automatically think its a topic better suited for the marketing department.
I disagree!
Let marketing handle the 50,000 piece campaign and marketing the company, your job is to market yourself (and the company) one potential client at a time.
So here are 3 simple ways […]

Go to Sales Playbook
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700 sales Jedis.

Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 companies and is the author of Castain’s Sales Playbook (which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website).