Marketing Week Greece, in March 2017, honored me by hosting my article on Sales Proposing, in both the print and electronic versions of the magazine
http://www.marketingweek.gr/default.asp?pid=9&la=1&cID=1&arId=62557

by George Pastidis

I had imagined this post a lot different. Keeping a log of the running activity during my preparation for Paris Marathon, the idea was to write two stories where in parallel to the marathon prep, I would examine a key sales deal of a major account. That would give me the opportunity to discuss the similarities when it comes to successes, failures, drawbacks, restarts and in the very end, finishing the marathon and wining the deal read more…

by George Pastidis

Last Saturday, I was struggling to finish a challenging 22km run in the rain. I was desperately looking for something to focus on, so I can stop thinking to give it up. I remembered that a friend had asked me to write about the eternal dilemma: Talent vs Skills. My mind travelled 30 years back in 1987, when the National Basketball team of Greece won the Eurobasket Cup which must be the biggest sports achievement of my country. Perhaps because it is the very first one in team sports read more…

By George Pastidis

It was a couple of days ago when I ran into the interesting site of MCE, talking about leadership and the business skills needed today: ”… it is important that you focus on three key areas of leadership – Leading Self, Leading Others and Leading Business.  You need to start by understanding yourself and your personal strengths. You need to ensure that you have all the necessary skills to work and communicate with your peers and colleagues throughout the world. Then, you need to gain the skills and knowledge to engage and motivate your teams towards common business goals. This also includes formulating a vision, setting the strategy and communicating it. Finally, you need to make sure you have the business skills for your specialized area in Finance, Marketing, Sales, Human Resources etc.” read more…

by George Pastidis

After working many years in sales, sales training and sales learning & development, I have been exposed to a bunch of great different ways and models for proposing to customer.  I guess, we all have, one or another way. We all have heard of terms such as features, benefits, advantages, unique selling points, differentiators, insights etc. I do not mean to underestimate these concepts that significant training companies have come up with and they are usually based on serious research. They help us have a common understanding, speak the same sales language and get more effective. However, us that we do not sell “sales training” but we only want to make use of for getting the job done, we must have a clear picture and be able to put things in the right order in terms of sales effectiveness read more…

by George Pastidis

Two days ago, I was in facebook when I came across the famous triple filter test of Socrates. The story is about a guy that approaches Socrates for telling him something that Diogenes did. Socrates applies his triple filter test for separating meaningful information from meaningless gossip and asks three key questions: read more…

by George Pastidis

The price issue pops up usually either in the beginning or in the very end of the buying cycle, when final negotiations take place. An experienced seller can – and should – easily overcome the first obstacle, avoiding talking price too early. But how can we avoid having a price impasse shock right before the closing stage? read more…

by George Pastidis

We are few days only before the year end. Fingers crossed, we are about to enjoy the harvest of our investment in time and hard work. What comes next is relaxing time with family and good friends for charging up our batteries. And then 2017. Next year that we need to start thinking of and planning. Of course planning starts with assessing our current status; understanding the existing situation; our strengths, weaknesses and hinders. Before this critical milestone, I thought I should share with you all, the thoughts of my friend Petros Kavazis, a fine young professional read more…

by George Pastidis

Last evening, I had the luck to attend a dinner where keynote speaker was the Greek-French prominent academic and Byzantinologist Dr Helene Glykatzi Arweiler who was the first woman Principal of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Later she was named Dean of the Academy of Paris and Chancellor of the Universities of Paris. An amazing woman. An amazing woman that despite her 90 years, she stays sharp, inspiring, fascinating and eager to share her remarkable lifetime experiences read more…

by George Pastidis

November is such a tricky month. We are between the last turn and the finish line on our racetrack. We are on the “last stretch”. Then we can have holidays in peace and start working on our smart new year resolutions. Unfortunately, David Copperfield is not our colleague. So, neither rabbits nor pigeons can come out of our black high hats. If we want to bring our numbers, we need to work effective and efficient read more…