Business Lessons from Denny Crane

Denny Crane, played by William Shatner, in the legal drama Boston Legal is one of my all-time favorite characters. Josh Bell, TV Critic for Las Vegas Weekly, describes Denny as “egomaniacal, sexually ravenous, prone to malapropisms”. That’s an apt description. In the show, Denny is a “renowned attorney of some fifty years of practice, who claims to have won 6043 cases and will never lose one”. With such an impressive resume, he sure has some life and business lessons for all of us.

The 90-60-30 Sales Communication Strategy

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How to increase sales? How to increase lead conversion? How to sell more to existing customers? These are some of the most common and frequent questions discussed in business strategy and sales meetings. Thanks to the internet economy, businesses have multiple sources for generating new leads. The channels to advertise, market and acquire customers keep on increasing. As new leads keep piling on, we tend to lose track of old leads and prospects. 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the meeting. 44% of sales reps give up after 1 follow-up. The 90-60-30 sales communication strategy is a framework for rechurning old leads and staying in touch with customers and prospects.

How to Increase Sales when Business is Slow?

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The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic impacted businesses of all size. Big or small, most businesses experienced a sharp decline in sales. While the pandemic was a once in a lifetime event for most of us, there are several other frequent causes for extended periods of low sales for a business. Some of these causes are controllable while others may be external, uncontrollable and unavoidable. In this post, we will cover tips and processes to increase sales when business is slow. How and what can be done to get back on track?

How to Retain Customers?

How to retain customers?

Customer retention at all stages of a business is more important than customer acquisition. How to retain customers? The equation for how to retain customers is pretty simple. The rate of innovation should exceed the rate of increase in customer expectations.

My Biggest Leadership Mistake

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My biggest strengths as a leader have been the ability to connect with my team and help them find simple solutions for problems both at work and in life. A fellow manager once said that I “effortlessly bring a method to the madness”. However, I am like most on a journey to improve myself every day. As I would rate people management as one of my key leadership qualities, this post is about my biggest leadership mistake.

How NOT to Fire Someone?

Meeting to decide on firing employee for poor performance.

Firing someone is dreadful. As a manager, it has always been the most difficult task for me. I am certain it is for most. But let’s admit it. It is a job that needs to be done. It needs to be done right. There are several excuses we have to justify firing an employee. However there is one question we must ask ourselves every time – “Is it absolutely necessary to fire this person?” More often than not, a well thought, evaluated and honest answer is “No”. Let us reason with ourselves how not to fire someone.

This one change will make you a better leader

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There is always a method to the madness. All complexities in life and work have a simple solution somewhere close, out of sight. Leadership is one such complexity. While there are a million resources to enlighten us on becoming a better leader, I rank this one quality as the most rewarding.

Are you chasing the right goals?

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What gets measured gets managed. You would have heard this several times. There is so much focus on measuring and reporting all data that is easily available. This leads to information overload. Colorful charts on the projector screen scream for attention. Quite often, teams waste energy and time on meaningless reports. What are you monitoring? What are your goals? Are you chasing the right goals?