Bob Burg and John David Mann, co-authors of The Go-Giver, offer these four tips for generating leads and increasing sales and referrals:

Melinda Mallari, founder of Precision Market Services, offers these no-nonsense tips for better customer service:

A woman on a talk radio show admitted to stealing sugar packets from her local Starbucks. But she expressed no shame. Indeed, she felt the theft was justified by the outrageous prices Starbucks charges for a cup of coffee, calling her pilfering a “condiment subsidy.”

If you create a culture of service in your company, according to author Kevin Stirtz, customer loyalty will follow. Here are four more tips for better customer service:

We present a case study on how one smart growing business landed more quality leads by improving its sales prospecting techniques.

Here are five selling errors that sales professionals would do well to avoid:

Committing to excellent customer service standards is a sure way for businesses of all sizes to stand out from the competition. Here are five tips for better customer service:

Focusing on your customers is one of the sales techniques that work in today’s economy. Use these successful sales techniques to keep your focus on the prospect:

Drew Stevens, Ph.D., author of Split Second Selling, cites four cost-effective methods that sales professionals can use to gain a competitive advantage without blowing their budget:

The best way to strengthen your customers’ devotion to your brand is to treat them well, and with respect. Author Dave Ratner offers seven tips on how to improve your customer service standards:

When times are tough and customer dollars are scarce, the companies with excellent customer service standards weather the storm. Consider these tips for better customer service to keep your customers coming back:

“We are moving toward a pre-boom economy, and selling professionals and managers will need to be more efficient and more productive next year,” contends author and sales expert Drew Stevens, PhD. Here are some areas that will be affected:

Many members of the new generation of online marketers — bloggers, SEO specialists, social networkers, viral video producers — loudly and frequently proclaim that old-fashioned advertising … derisively referred to as “disruption marketing” … is dead.

Are you saying “thank you” to customers or clients? Follow these quick tips from customer retention management specialist Randi Busse to show some love to your customers or clients. They’ll love you back through customer loyalty.

My late friend, the accomplished Michigan ad man James Alexander, once told me: “I can work with a client who is ignorant. I can work with a client who is arrogant. But I cannot work with one who is both.”

Customer service trainer Randi Busse encourages businesses to find out what their customers expect of them as a way to improve their service standards. Busse offers the following tips:

One of my greatest pleasures is to read trade journals, newsletters, and business magazines at home or during lunch (like many of you, I don’t have time to read them during working hours). But according to an article in BtoB (3/10/08, p. 28), I may soon be denied that privilege, as magazines discontinue their print editions and make their content available on the Web only.

What does it mean to truly listen? Author Maribeth Kuzmeski offers several suggestions to help you improve your customer service standards:

Decades ago, there was a terrific restaurant in NYC with no waiters: the Horn & Hardart Automat. All the food was displayed behind glass windows. To order, you inserted your bills and coins in a slot, pushed a button, removed your sandwich or pie, and put it on your tray — no waiting, no being ignored by busy wait staff, no tipping.

In the old days, sales reps for drug companies were invariably middle-aged men, known in the trade as “detail men.” The average detail man wore a downtrodden appearance and demeanor, no doubt from years of shabby treatment by the M.D.s who were his prospects — and treated him as a second-class citizen.

Kate Tammemagi, a customer service trainer at Focus Training, shares these great customer service tips to improve your phone skills:

Steve Fretzin, president of Sales Results, Inc, offers these four tips for successful cold calling:

An article in Circulation Management (5/08, p. 12) states: “Your subscribers should be complaining about their subscription price. If they’re not, then you’re not charging enough.”

Over the years, a number of advancements have helped sales professionals become more successful, but the manner of selling will surely change. Here are four trends to keep in mind, courtesy of Drew J. Stevens, Ph.D., founder of Drew Stevens Consulting:

Hiring successful sales employees is especially critical to the success of a business. Steve Fretzin, president of the search firm team discovery offers these five effective sales management techniques: