Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
When it Pays to Be Audacious and Just Ask
Many years ago my coauthor, Jerry Panas, was asked to organize the annual meeting for the chamber of commerce in Alliance, Ohio, where he once lived. He decided—rather ambitiously—to ask J.C. Penney to be the annual speaker. At the time, Penney—know as “Mr. Penney” to everyone—was one of the greatest merchants of the 20th century. […]
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Why you must improve your conversational skills
I’ve heard a common complaint from the senior corporate executives I work with and also from some of our young, single female friends in New York City: Why can’t people have a good conversation anymore? In the executives’ case, they are complaining about the external service providers and advisors they work with, who can’t stop […]
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The WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook and the Twenty-Third Law of Relationships
Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp underscores something I’ve believed for a long time: that notwithstanding social media’s ability to connect us with thousands of contacts, we ultimately gravitate towards a small handful of deep, meaningful relationships at work and at home. About Facebook’s latest move, The New York Times wrote, “Weary of noisy social […]
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The Enduring Power of Culture—and Chutzpah: Duff McDonald’s new book on McKinsey
The Firm: The Story of McKinsey is an in-depth profile of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. It was written by journalist Duff McDonald. Many terrible books have been written about the consulting industry, mostly by people who worked for a few years at a big consulting firm and then decided to write a “tell-all” […]
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Valentine’s Day Lies—and Six Relationship Rules That Make Romance Work
Our contemporary culture promotes many trite, misleading, and self-absorbed ideas about what makes for successful romantic relationships. “Just be yourself”, “Find someone who won’t try to change you”, and the old chestnut, “You must love yourself first.” But these truisms don’t point to the real ingredients of rewarding relationships. Popular concepts like the need to […]
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Four Strategies for Becoming Powerfully Relevant to Your Prospects and Clients
Are you like water and sunshine to your clients? Connect. Become relevant. Resonate. Make an impact. Those are the steps you follow to build your most powerful relationships. In Part One of this three-part series on the Laws of Power Relationships, I described strategies for connecting. In this post, I share four Relationship Laws that will […]
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Six Powerful Words to Grow Your Business in the New Year
The first word is Why? The first word is Why Every day of the next year will be gift for each of us. That’s why my first word for 2014 is “Why?” When used in the right way and at the right time, “Why?” is one of the most powerful words in our vocabulary. This […]
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How to Turn the First Sale into a Long-Term Relationship
For many professionals, the toughest part of building long-term client relationships is getting the client in the first place. But moving from the initial sale to an ongoing relationship has its own challenges. In fact, it requires careful planning and thought—starting on the very first day of your new relationship. You need to follow these […]
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