Years ago, I attended a keynote speech whose main topic was customer service. The speaker's centerpiece was "the pickle story." To make a long story short, this guy discovered he was out of pickles just before a big Sunday cookout at his house, and made an emergency run to the closest supermarket. He arrived home, opened the jar, only to find…

Every experienced sales manager has a trick or two when it comes to hiring the best candidate for an open sales position. After a candidate passes the…

Zero does have a seemingly magical impact on our brains (see The Power of Free), though zero isn't always a good thing. Zero resources, for example, are…

Most companies think about extending their brand to maximize their exposure and value. That's why we have HUMMER cologne (at least while the vehicles were…

The power of anecdotes to persuade (see Why Stories Sell and Your Brain on Stories) is established, but there's a dark side to that power. Quite simply, an…

We know that anecdotes can be a convincing way to sell a product, particularly if the story is told by someone we trust. (See Your Brain on Stories.)…

What's more accurate than asking people to predict their behavior? According to a new study at UCLA, the answer is, "Scan their brains." This may not come…

What are the ideal characteristics for a person in a sales position? Great people skills? Strong product knowledge? Add confidence to the list. Continuing a…

Review: The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons Before reading farther, watch this…

Finnish scent marketing firm Ideair used ten restaurants and bars to conduct an interesting test of the effect of scent on product sales. As reported by…