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Writing and Publishing

How to Format Your Submission

There are two main points for the proper way to format your submission. First, there are common basic criteria that almost all people agree on. Second, most publishers and editors will tell you what else they expect in their submission guidelines. So, follow these basic formatting expectations in all your work, and then tweak it […]

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Business

The Either/Or Close

Ask Your Prospect to Choose Between Two Options, Both of Which Meet Your Objective By Peter Lyle DeHaan Remember when I went on the sales call with Mitchell? In a few minutes I closed the sale he’d been working on for a couple of months. The “secret” sales technique I used is no secret at […]

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Writing and Publishing

My First Published Article

I’ve been a writer for most of my life and a published author for over thirty. My first article appeared decades ago. The title was “All About Pagers.” It appeared in the now-defunct tech magazine, Radio Electronics. Here’s a link to a scanned image of the cover and article. If you open the link, you’ll […]

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Business

A Day of Sales Calls

Interact with Sales Staff in the Field to Determine Their Strengths and Weaknesses By Peter Lyle DeHaan Mitchell came to us in need of a second chance. With a lifetime of experience in the business world and history of sales success he seemed overqualified to work for our company. But he assured me this was […]

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Writing and Publishing

How to Fuel Your Writing

I write a lot and in many areas: magazine columns, newsletters, multiple blogs, non-fiction books, memoirs, and I recently added short stories. But this doesn’t sap my creativity; I still have more ideas than the time to explore them. Here’s how I fuel my writing: Keep a List of Blog Ideas: I have a running […]

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Healthcare Call Centers

Integrate Call Center Staff

Pursue Agent Cross Training to Produce Better Outcomes and Improve Efficacy By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. In my post “Integrate Your Call Center” I discussed various integration strategies to pursue. Now I’ll dive into each one of them with more intentionality. First up is to integrate call center staff. The key requirement to staffing integration […]

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Business

Align Marketing Tactics with Sales Skills

When the Execution of Your Plan Falls Short, It Might Be Time for a New Plan By Peter Lyle DeHaan In the book-publishing community, it’s no secret that most authors would rather write than promote their work. In this regard, I am like most authors. Yes, some writers are extroverts and love the activities around […]

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Writing and Publishing

Is Blogging a Form of Self-Publishing?

I once read that blogging is a form of self-publishing. The author’s opinion gave me pause. It seemed a simplistic claim. I felt it in some way diminished the noble art of publishing. Anyone can blog, and it seems most everyone does, but not most everyone self-publishes a book, even though the tools are there […]

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Business

Experience versus Education

Evaluate If Recent College Grads Are Right for Your Company By Peter Lyle DeHaan When hiring a salesperson, you can seek someone with relevant experience or someone with related education. Sometimes a candidate has both. The opposite is when they have neither. I’d been hiring salespeople who had varying degrees of selling experience, though sometimes […]

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Writing and Publishing

Researching Competitive Titles

A common part of many book proposals is a “competitive works” section. I recently researched competitive titles for one of my book proposals. What I saw enlightened me. Traditionally Published Books To research competitive titles, I first looked at books from traditional publishers. They gave me pause. I had to think a bit to determine […]