Author Archives: David Shedd

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About David Shedd

David has been a President - CEO - COO of an up to $350M group of manufacturing, distribution, specialty retail and services companies, having led 22 different businesses from turnarounds to start-ups to fast growth companies.

Calm the Rhetoric…Make Molehills

Today, exaggeration and hyperbole are ever-present. Listen to any sports event… tune into any news program…Speak with many of your friends and/or employees… What do you hear? Amazing… incredible… unbelievable The meeting was a disaster…this is crazy… what a collapse … Continue reading →

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Ten Ways to Grow Sales Now

Despite the improving unemployment rate and positive economic indicators, many B2B companies are stuck in slow and no growth modes. How can these companies re-kindle growth and increase sales?

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New Year Resolutions for First-Time Managers

Happy New Year! For first time managers struggling to move their business units forward in 2015, now is the time to take a step back and focus unwaveringly on the fundamentals of managing and leading others. As such, I offer … Continue reading →

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Mistakes Will Be Made

Four fundamentals to executing and getting things done are: Keep it simple Focus on the important Empower the team to make decisions at the lowest level possible Speed In practice, we often ignore these straightforward guidelines due to one over-riding … Continue reading →

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Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity

Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity, written by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn, is an excellent reminder to all of us to rail against complexity and keep things simple. Even though I summarize some of the key points below, I … Continue reading →

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Go Where the Growth Is

In today’s low growth world, B2B companies need to be looking for those market segments and niches that are growing faster than the overall economy. ‘Going where the growth is’ offers our companies the promise of increasing sales to growing … Continue reading →

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Foster Fresh Perspectives

As leaders, we can often get stuck in ruts, talking to the same people every day and thinking the same way as everyone else. To breakthrough and come up with new and innovative ideas and approaches to problems and issues, … Continue reading →

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Recap – One Key to Help Move Your Company Forward

A customer interaction and a meeting are not truly finished until we take a moment to review and sum up what has just happened.   How do we recap? 1. In a customer interaction, we need to go over the … Continue reading →

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We Need to Spend “Alone Time” With Our Skip Levels

As leaders, we need to spend time on a regular and consistent basis with our skip levels.   What is a Skip Level? As we move up in our organizations, we become ‘managers of managers’ with both direct reports and … Continue reading →

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The Advice Not Taken

Lose Weight…Eat More Fruits and Vegetables…Exercise More. We all know what we have to do in order to improve our health. That is easy. The difficulty lies in taking this advice and actually following it. Likewise in business, there is … Continue reading →

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Business Success by the Numbers

What numbers lead to business success? 0 – As in 0 /0 (zero injuries and zero accidents). In any company, the safety of employees and customers each and every day should be of highest concern.   1 – As in … Continue reading →

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Empathy – A Crucial Leadership Skill

Henry Ford said it well: If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. This … Continue reading →

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We Need to Deal with Our Non-Performers Today

Dealing with non-performers is likely the most uncomfortable (yet necessary) task in building a winning team.  Truth be told, few of us enjoy disciplining, remedial coaching, and terminating employees, especially those that we may work with on a daily basis. … Continue reading →

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An Open Letter From Your B2B Customer

Dear Mr. or Ms. Sales Manager, I am writing to remind you that I need you. You and your salespeople provide products and services that I need to help me succeed in my business. Unfortunately, many of your salespeople do … Continue reading →

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Building Accountability

A dirty little secret in business is that most organizations lack accountability at all levels from the leader to front-line management to individual employees: Assignments are not completed as promised Problems are left half resolved Phone calls are not returned … Continue reading →

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Be Easy to Do Business With

In a previous blog, Lessons from a Customer, I related my experience in dealing with 106 companies while I moved from Arizona to California. My conclusion was that most companies provide inadequate customer service and make it too difficult to … Continue reading →

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Five Questions to Ensure a Successful Sales Call

In his book, Spin Selling, Neil Rackham defines the four outcomes of any sales call: Win – the customer makes a firm commitment to buy Advance – the sales process moves forward towards a decision Continuation – the sales process … Continue reading →

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Getting Things Done

A crucial success factor for business leaders is getting the right things done. Visionary leadership, brilliant strategy formation, and outstanding man-management are all for nothing if we cannot execute and get done what we need to get done. I offer … Continue reading →

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Do We Spend Enough Time Selling? – The Cost of Chaos

We have and need salespeople in order to sell, that is, in order to move deals forward. But, how much time do our salespeople really spend selling each week? Rick McPartlin, the CEO of The Revenue Game (and someone with … Continue reading →

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To Sell More, Sell Less

Today’s customer is overwhelmed with too much information and not enough time and attention span to digest it all. As such, the best salespeople have evolved and simplified their sales approach to be more responsive to over-burdened and over-saturated customers. … Continue reading →

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