Is it May Already?

Man, it must have been busy these past few weeks. I have not looked at or posted to this blog since March. Terri and I have been busy with many things and just wrapped up our annual festivities centered around the Kentucky Derby, the greatest two minutes in sports.

We have an annual Derby Bash that has about 100 people traipsing through our house and lawn. We had family in from California and many friends and family over. We always have a blast with it but of course it is a lot of work and planning. Terri thankfully takes care of 99% of the pre-work.

This weekend we celebrated mine and Terri's 17 year "Dating anniversary". Yes, we do recognize our dating anniversary, the first time I bought her lunch at Subway. I think the only reason we really know the date is because it was 2 days before her birthday.

Speaking of her birthday, yesterday was Terri's birthday and today is Mother's day. Busy weekend for Hallmark at the Bell household. I spent $16 dollars on greeting cards at Kroger and that didn't include my Mom's card or my Mother-in-Laws card. Did you know greeting cards cost over $4 now? I swear I'm going to start sending e-cards to everyone.

While I'm up here on my soapbox, did you pay attention to the price of gas or a barrel of oil this week? We hit $126 per barrel on Friday and gas at Swifty (the cheaper place that lines up every week) was $3.75 tonight. According to the Tehran Times, "the U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs forecast an oil price of more than $200 a barrel within two years." I recently read where the 5 year oil futures were trading in excess of $100 which would indicate these prices are here to stay.

I think I have mentioned before on here that I am a big fan of Jeffrey Gitomer's. He's the sales guru whose articles you often read in Business First. I think this is where I first started reading Gitomer's articles on sales. He has a quirky sense of humor that I like. His ideas are sometimes over the top but the thing that strikes me most is he is going to have FUN.

I already have read many of his books with probably my favorite being "The Sales Bible". Well, he just released an updated version of The Sales Bible and as much as I enjoyed the first version, I couldn't pass on the updated version. While I was visiting the Amazon.com site, I also picked up copies of "SPIN Selling" and "The SPIN Selling Fieldbook" by Neil Rackham. I went through SPIN training a couple years ago with people from Huthwaite and figured I would study up on the old training to see what I had actually implemented from the training and what I could continue to work on in the future.

I like the idea of walking the client through their daily processes and leading them down their own road to what they are needing. If I can help with their needs then great, if I can't, that's great too. At least we've identified the needs and whether or not I can help.

I will try to post some of my thoughts on these reads once I have received them and read through them. I am anxious to receive them.