by George Pastidis

I was having a beer with a cousin of mine during my summer vacation and the guy was really upset. I tried to understand what was wrong with him to find out that a couple of guests that had just left the room he was renting in an island, had written a pretty bad and unfair in his opinion review on Booking. At first, I was taken by surprise, seeing how much this incident had affected his mood but then I understood. I check out ratings and reviews before I go to a restaurant that I have not been before. Even if I am standing outside a restaurant that looks appealing, the first thing I do, unless I have a friend recommending it, is to get on Trip Advisor and check it out. read more…

by George Pastidis

It was about ten years ago when I attended an HR conference in Athens that Damian Hughes was speaking at. He literally fascinated me referring to the concept of “Future History”. He told us that Muhammad Ali had made 19 public declarations about the round that he would knock-out his opponent and he got it right in 17 out of 19 times. When he was interviewed once, he was asked how come he managed to do that. And he explained that long before a fight, he would weight his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses compared to his, he would set a goal and then he would prepare to make it happen. He would prepare to make his future history. He would play the day of the fight to come over and over again in his mind. He would vision himself walking in the ring, hearing the spectators cheering for him, smelling his opponent’s sweat, seeing his opponent in the eyes, throwing at him the perfect punch. He would make future history every time. read more…

by George Pastidis

My home country Greece is living a nightmare. Last week’s wild fires, killed 88 people and many more are missing, making everybody believe that the number of victims will end up being a three digit one. Sheer tragedy that left us with many question marks. Were we prepared? Was there a plan? If yes, could the plan be applied better? Should they have asked for an evacuation way earlier? Should the Greek government claim responsibility instead of making up excuses? Would things turn out to be different if every one of us was more responsible in the past? read more…

Please do not freak out. I know that reading sales books on vacation is far from ideal. Would probably be way more fun to deep dive in some Jo Nesbo crime novel or check out Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s latest book The Labyrinth of Spirits. Those are definitely a better match to sandy beaches lay-outs. But you may have some time to kill in the plane while you have not totally disconnected yet. Maybe it is the right time to catch up with your learning that is left behind due to the recent work load. Perhaps you feel like you have gaps that you need to fill in and questions that you must answer. The books I recommend are fab. Some of them are master-pieces that pioneered and shaped up sales for decades. Some others are in the edge of today’s sales research. But all of them have one common denominator: they are sales books that are worth reading.

• SPIN Selling
• Major Account Sales Strategy
• The Challenger Sale
• The Challenger Customer
• Three Value Conversations
• Conversations that Win the Complex Sale

Happy summer reading

by George Pastidis

Mike Tyson has said “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. France and England, they both had a tactical plan in the semi-finals of the soccer world-cup. And their plan was pretty much similar. They both chose to leave space for their opponents and probably see them getting worn out. The French will get to cheer for their team in the final, screaming “Vive la France” while the English saw themselves going from a “Come on England” mode to “Come ooooon England, not again”. The recipe was the same but the ingredients different. So, were the results. read more…

by George Pastidis

The world cup is at its peak and we can hardly avoid thinking in terms of football these days. The Video Assistant Referee system (VAR) is the video technology introduced in football lately for achieving better and more accurate decisions. Either the video referees inform the on-field referee that his decision is under review or the referee himself asks the video referees for a VAR review. read more…

by George Pastidis

Some friends might be seeing me nagging for a second say in a row about the same thing. This is because I could not make time to blog about it yesterday and I rushed into making a brief post on facebook right after I ended a presentation I was attending. But let me take it from the beginning. read more…

by George Pastidis

There is no doubt that Sales Enablement is a key factor for closing the gap between buyers and sellers, ensuring that everybody in the organization speaks the same sales language. Sales Enablement does and should impact every sales interaction. Then sellers are really enabled to bring the numbers. Association of Professional Sales (APS) brought together the Sales Enabling Community in London, for seeking out and sharing best practices and I had the chance to be there and participate in an insightful panel discussion with other Sales Enablement practitioners. read more…

by George Pastidis

The King is dead. Long live the king. This could be a fine and catchy title for describing the death of powerpoint and the rise of storytelling, the new talk of the town. I read few months back an interesting article in Independent with title: “Let’s ban PowerPoint in lectures – it makes students more stupid and professors more boring”. And today I heard that Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon, banned powerpoint from meetings, asking his people to use informative and inspiring stories for communicating read more…

Athens, 28 March 2018

Proud to be part of the Sales Excellence Awards 2018 that the Sales Institute in Greece and Boussias Conferences organize on six consecutive years. Back in 2013, heading ICAP Group and Huthwaite Intl, I participated in for being awarded with the Gold Award for Sales Training. This time, I was part of the judging committee, together with fine academics and senior sales professionals and I had the honor to give the awards for Sales Training and speak to a vibrant audience of more than 500 people, the crème de a crème of Greek sales professionals read more…