Fortune Magazine has a couple of blog columns. One is called Legal Pad, by Roger Parloff, Fortune’s Senior Editor for Legal Affairs. An experienced and educated journalist who writes well…

I long ago attended a sales call with my boss. When asked by the client, “what experience do you have doing this [narrowly defined] kind of work?” he shocked me…

Last week I suggested that listening was the necessary condition of most forms of persuasion: if you want to convince someone of something, you’re best advised to listen first to…

While trust is experienced personally, it also happens within a given social context. Sometimes we take the context for granted. Other times, it intrudes on us in ways that make…

We trust individuals (or not). We also say we “trust” (or not) institutions—the SEC, Citibank, physicians (as a class), or business in general. Let’s talk about the latter. (Insert your…

“Customer focus” has achieved the status of unquestioned business virtue. Hundreds of books and gurus attest to the power of customer focus to improve sellers’ business results. Customers benefit too…

Suppose you had to give a speech. To which audience would you rather present? The National Speakers Association The International Listening Association Microsoft The NSA might sound the most intimidating.…

law lawyers trust

One of Harvard Business Review’s all-time best-selling articles is Ted Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia.” It sold 850,000 reprints from its 1960 publication to Levitt’s death earlier this year. Re-read today, it…

I want to make sure to get tactical and practical every few posts. This is Tip #27, but I'm publishing it first, out of sequence, because I think it's so…