As you review 2025 and look forward to 2026, one thing to review is to look at what you enjoyed doing in 2025. What was that “thing” whether work related, hobby related, family related, that gave you joy. What made you happy, gave you peace, and did not feel like work?  Wouldn’t it be great to identify that “thing” that gave you passion that did not feel like a burden or chore?Identify it and do more of it in 2026. You mind, body and spirit will feel it and will thank you. If it was that great vacation, plan another. If it was going antiquing, plan another trip. If it was exercising, eating right and getting your health back, keep working on it. How about making that dish or dessert at home that you always wanted to make, and you did it. Do more of it.Take some time to enjoy the good things in life that de-stress you. Work and life’s pressure, most of the time, will be there. Every second the clock ticks, is time you can’t get back. Keep that in mind.

Take the risk. Implement the new idea. Start the business. Create the product..

Sales outsourcing or contract sales can work for small businesses. There are some factors that determine if it will work for you business. In the short term, if you need some quick hits or fast sales over a few months, contract sales teams can prove to be beneficial. Contract and outsourced sales reps are typically ready on day one, when you need them. They have experienced sales reps, CRM, list, sales tech and prospecting tools to hit the ground running Additionally, if what you’re selling is rather easy to explain and the price point is reasonable, sales can close fast. This leads to booking revenue, but also getting market data. This data allows you to modify your offering, pricing and sales approaches. Outsourcing Sales Models If what you are selling is more complex and at a higher price point than the current market dictates, it can take longer to get those first few sales.

Cost of goods and services are seeing some pressures from inflation. Many businesses are absorbing the costs of tariffs if they sell items that are affected. Some are starting to increase prices. Not in mass though. The job market is somewhat frozen for new entry level positions. Many employees are not retiring, others are not moving to other jobs because of the current state of the market. That makes entry level jobs less available. Inflation is still with us, but not at the rate in the past. Prices are not dropping either.

Chat GPT is feeding itself information from the web to provide answers to search queries. Lots of information on the web is inaccurate and at times blatantly false. When a query comes back with bad info and the user uses that info in a article or blog post, it keeps feeding the engine of Chat GPT with inaccurate information. So Chat GPT is getting dumber. For now you need to be careful and vet what Chat GPT is giving you. It will take time for it to decipher good info from bad info.

Short episode addressing how to be found on AI searches..

The Hispanic population is the fastest growing minority demographic in the U.S. With over 66 million living in the U.S. they present an opportunity for businesses to sell their products & services.I share some info on how to reach them. https://www.leaseasalesrep.com/latino-market-sales/ Contact us:  https://www.leaseasalesrep.com/contacts/  

In some cases AI  may replace low level sales people, but is most cases it won't. AI is a tool that will help sales reps be more efficient In their prospecting, writing and admin tasks. In some cases of high volume sales activities like insurance, real estate and others, it can help with repetitive processes. 

AI appointment setting services and software companies seem to be on the increase over the past 12 months. I share whether this new way of getting appointments may or may not work for you business.  In some industries it can work. It depends.  

Here are 6 tactics that you can use to increase your B2B lead flow.

Look at 1. Lead flow from prior year 2.How many did you actually speak too 3.How many did you quote 4.How many did you close If you want to increase the number of sales you close, look at increasing the number of leads once you know what you numbers are. Listen in for a simple breakdown using a 100 lead example..

Short form content is working on LinkedIn. Once you connect with the prospect, after about 1 week, reach out again. Send a message. A short paragraph. 3-4 lines at the most. 2 lines ideally, if you can to share something that will engage them. In that short message include a link to book a call with you. i.e. Calendly, or some other booking software.  

We are seeing trends of people buying vinyl records, record players, paper books, cassette players. There are some reasons for this .

cost of new cars are still high. interest rates are still high. many are holding onto their current vehicles.

this episode covers some positions at risk to be eliminated or severely reduced as a result of the growth of A.I. But there are opportunities as a result the shift to A.I.

A Starbucks Grande Caramel Frappuccino is typically listed at around $5.65 on the chain’s menu boards. These days, many customers pay about half that price. For a grande-size brewed coffee, same deal: An average listed price of $3.65 rings up more like $1.83 with a buy one get one free offer. After largely ignoring special deals for decades, Starbucks is now often selling coffee at a discount. The world’s largest coffee chain is trying to bring back lapsed customers, betting big on BOGO offers, supersize perks for loyalty members and other deals.  The company ran promotions for about half the month of May, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. This month, for the first time in more than a decade, Starbucks began offering bundles of coffee and breakfast food starting at $5. “50% off a drink. It’s on,” Starbucks said in a recent email to customers. “Keep checking the app all summer for more deals heading your way.”Surging inflation over the past several years is now spurring more Americans to rethink their spending on everything from food to furniture.Some consumers have been reconsidering their Starbucks habit. The average price for a grande brewed coffee earlier this year was $3.65—49% above 2020 levels, according to the market-research firm Technomic, which tracks prices at the chain.The chain’s U.S. traffic dropped 7% in the three months ended March 31 from the prior year, the biggest quarterly decline since at least 2010, Starbucks said. Its active loyalty-rewards users decreased by 1.5 million between Dec. 31 and March 31.  This is why they are doing 50% deals to increase store traffic. 

some tips that can help you connect with the prospect

In this episode, we speak with Ph.D psychologist Ayelet Schafir Hirshfeld, owner of DiversITUS , a clinical psychologist practice in CA. They work with businesses, families and individuals. We cover: 1. Why people may still not want to gather with others in public spaces or events. 2. Why some employees want to remain at home and work virtually, post covid. Could it be fear of getting sick or convenience. 3. What potential trauma people can be carrying around post covid (i.e. fear of death), similarities to PTSD. 4. What could be leading people to wear masks in open air environments and using them while alone in a car. 5. The difference between a PTSD that is man made as a result of war vs one made through a natural disaster, like a flood. Some say covid was man made, some say it was natural. 6. We discuss the push back by millions on mandates by employers and by government on vaccine and mask requirements. You can connect with Dr. Ayelet Hirshfeld @Websitehttps://www.diversitus.org/ Linkedinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ayelethirshfeldphd/