Jack Malcolm
Jack Malcolm
Jack founded Falcon Performance Group in 1996 specifically to combine his complex-sale expertise and his extensive financial background to design and implement complete sales process improvement initiatives at top national and international corporations.
And Never the Twain Shall Meet: What You Say Is Important vs. What Customers Say Is Important
Abraham Lincoln once said that when preparing for a speech he would spend two-thirds of his time thinking about what the audience wanted to...
Thinking: A “New” Old Skill for Sales
I got the idea for this post while reading Dave Brock's post about the importance of letting salespeople think, and the latest HBR offering...
In Defense of Reason
My animal spirits, especially the balance between fear and security, almost prevented me from writing this post, but I had to speak up against...
Deliberate Practice for Presentations
I'm going to start this post with a commonly accepted premise: to achieve mastery of a specific skill requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice....
Article Recommendation: Dismantling the Sales Machine
Dismantling the Sales Machine, by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon and Nicholas Toman in this month's Harvard Business Review is a well-timed and well-aimed shot...
Outside-In Thinking Times 3
Outside-In thinking—taking the perspective of the other party—is the first of the four pillars of persuasive power, and it has figured prominently in this...
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I generally agree with the premise of challenger selling, that you should be willing to provide sometimes uncomfortable insights to your customers. Sometimes customers...
Leave the Product in the Car
I don't know who came up with the title phrase, but I first heard it from John Hensel, with whom I worked in sales...
Using Following Skills in Persuasive Conversations
It has been one of the recurring themes of this blog that persuasive communication is about outside-in thinking—about understanding where the other person is...
Put Passion in its Place
Several years ago I got involved in an initiative to try to stop a major development in our neighborhood. In preparation for our own...
Antifragility in Sales
Salespeople are not fragile. It's well known that resiliency is a crucial prerequisite for successful salespeople. It's not just the frequency of rejection they...
19 Reasons that Talk is NOT Cheap
When it's all about you and not what you can do for the customer, talk is NOT cheap. When it crowds out listening, talk is...
Even Optimists Buy Insurance: Dealing with Strengths and Weaknesses
Just pump up the other three The genesis of this article was a recent SmartBrief on Leadership email, with the following two articles highlighted at...
How Well Does your Presentation Travel?
International travel and communication are so convenient nowadays that it's easy to forget that people in other cultures think and communicate differently than Americans...
You never know if a door is truly locked until you try the handle
A lot of well-meaning people tell you that you should develop your strengths and follow your passion. The unspoken corollary to that is that...
A Few Good Books on Visual Persuasion
Last weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a lawyer about the proper use of visuals in persuasive presentations. In the courtroom, lawyers have...
Book Recommendation: Managers as Mentors, by Chip Bell and Marshall Goldsmith
Why am I reviewing a book on mentoring in a blog on persuasive communication? The first reason is that Chip Bell, whom I've known...
What Is Your Elevator Question?
Are elevators getting faster, or are buildings getting shorter? Do you ever feel that listeners won't even take the time to listen to your elevator...
There is Something to be Said Here
It was 1917. American forces had arrived in France to join the war against Germany, but were not yet actively involved in the fighting....
Conversations vs. Presentations
For some reason, most of us draw a clear line between conversations and presentations. It's like crossing the border from a comfortable and familiar...