In this edition:
- Thursday Thoughts – Everyone is a Sales Person
- Weekly Top 5 – Drive Impact with AI, Which Founder Are You?, Executive Presence Breakdown, Psychology at Work, & Get Your Exec to Delegate
- Language of Business Series – Customer Service & Sales
- Reading Recommendations – Think and Grow Rich, Go-Givers Sell More, & How to Win Friends & Influence People
THURSDAY THOUGHTS
Everyone is a salesperson. Yes, you too!
One of the reasons I became an Executive Assistant was because I thought I’d found a career where I could stay behind the scenes. No cold calling, pitch meetings, door-knocking, or sales quotas. Perfect!
Then I started my own business and quickly realized…that plan had completely fallen apart. A solopreneur or founder’s #1 job is sales!
Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized I hadn’t suddenly entered sales. I’d been in sales my entire career.
Every time I interviewed for a job, I was selling my experience.
Every time I pitched an idea to a leader, I was selling a recommendation.
Every time I asked for more budget, negotiated a deadline, influenced a decision, or convinced someone to adopt a new process, I was selling.
The difference is that I never called it that.
Somewhere along the way, “sales” became synonymous with pushy tactics, quotas, and convincing people to buy things they don’t need. But the best salespeople I’ve met don’t operate that way. They’re curious. They ask good questions. They solve problems. They build trust.
Sound familiar?
Leadership is influence. Partnership is influence. And, at its core, sales is influence too.
This month’s newsletter is all about customer service, sales, and the client experience. Even if you never plan to carry a sales quota, I think you’ll discover that these skills belong in every Force Multiplier’s toolkit.
We’re all selling something. The sooner we stop fighting that idea and start embracing it, the more effective we’ll become in every part of our careers.
And, I’ll even go so far as to say that developing the ability to sell an idea, a product, or your expertise is the ultimate competitive edge no matter what role you’re in.
WEEKLY TOP 5
- Most executives feel the pressure to “lead with AI,” but transformation starts with the people who make leadership possible: their Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff. Join Zapier EAs Christina Romein and Cortney Hickey for a candid AMA on how they moved from admin to strategic operations. They share the 4 stages of AI adoption, strategic leverage, building trust, and high-impact use cases for AI. This webinar is your practical playbook for becoming the indispensable strategic partner in the age of automation. Enjoy!
- Which Founder Owner are you? Hancock? Franklin? Washington? Or Adams? Every founder has a different path to building something that lasts. Contrarian Thinking explores four distinct founder archetypes and challenges leaders to lean into what they do best while empowering others (like their Force Multipliers!) to fill the gaps.
- Is executive presence a myth? Dave Kline asserts that executive presence may be the biggest leadership lie and that executive presence isn’t really a thing. Say what!? Read on for the five things that leaders actually need. Agree or disagree?
- This month The Force Multiplier Book Club is reading Managing Up–which is excellent! The author, Melody Wilding, also has a great podcast – Psychology at Work. The podcast shares interviews, insider tips, and inspiring stories that blend brain science and office savvy. And every episode shows you how to master your own emotions, while also navigating the personalities and idiosyncrasies of those around you. Recent episodes cover topics such as endurance, the niceness trap, real career freedom, and how to stop talking yourself out of opportunities you’ve earned.
- Delegation is one of the most talked-about leadership skills—and one of the most poorly executed. Many executives want to delegate but don’t know how, don’t trust the process, or don’t realize what they’re holding onto. In this practical session, we’ll flip the script and focus on what you can control. Join me on July 15 at 3pm EST for How to Get Your Exec to Delegate (Even If They Are Bad At It). This session is about becoming a Force Multiplier, not a task taker—and helping your Executive feel confident letting go. Register even if you can’t attend live. You will receive the recording!
LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS SERIES – CUSTOMER SERVICE & SALES
- Jewelry Designers Invite Clients Into Their Worlds – While this article focuses on the luxury shopping experience at the Brent Neale showroom, you can extrapolate the lessons and apply them to the sales and customer experience in your business. Think outside the [jewelry] box!
- 4 Steps That Can Optimize Your Sales Process – Great businesses don’t just improve how they sell—they improve how they qualify, prioritize, and manage opportunities. This article breaks down the four steps that lead to a stronger, more predictable sales process.
- Customer Engagement for the Win! Call Your Top Customers! – Such an underrated customer engagement strategy. Pick up the phone and call your top customers. Get their feedback. Thank them for their business. And, yes, you can film the interaction and post on social media for even more engagement. Win-win!
- How to Build a Sales Team: A Comprehensive Guide – Understanding how to properly staff, manage, measure performance, and build a budget for your sales team is key. Thanks Zendesk! A strong sales team drives revenue and accelerates growth. This article is particularly helpful if you’re part of a small business where you are responsible for helping hire and lead the sales function alongside your leader.
- The Best CRM Software for 2026 – It feels like business owners, operations professionals, and right-hand partners are always looking for the best CRM. Customer relation management (CRM) software enables you to maximize every interaction. Check out this article from PCMag to help you choose the right CRM for your business based on their in-depth testing.
READING RECOMMENDATIONS
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill | This was the first real “personal growth” book I ever read about 17 years ago. I still remember most of The Self-Confidence Formula to this day. In Think and Grow Rich, Hill draws on stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaires of his generation to illustrate his principles. This book will teach you the secrets that could bring you a fortune. It will show you not only what to do but how to do it. Once you learn and apply the simple, basic techniques revealed here, you will have mastered the secret of true and lasting success.
- Go-Givers Sell More by Bob Burg and John David Mann | Most of us think of sales as convincing potential customers to do something they don’t really want to. This mentality sets up an adversarial relationship and makes the sales process much harder than it has to be. As Burg and Mann demonstrate, it’s far more productive (and satisfying) when salespeople think like Go-Givers. Cultivate a trusting relationship and focus exclusively on creating value for the other person and great results will follow automatically.
- How to Win Friends & Influence People: The Only Book You Need to Lead You to Success by Dale Carnegie | Originally published during the depths of the Great Depression—and equally valuable during booming economies or hard times—Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their professional and personal lives. This book teaches you how to communicate effectively, make people like you, increase your ability to get things done, get others to see your side, become a more effective leader, successfully navigate any social situation, and more! A must-read classic.
“Everyone is a salesperson. Everyone works on commission. When you learn how to influence, persuade and sell yourself, and your products and services to others, you reap the benefits personally, professionally and financially.”
Brian Tracy
Enjoying this series? Subscribe to The Founder & The Force Multiplier Newsletter here.
Understanding the language of business is essential for the Force Multipliers of the future–whether you’re committed to a career as a right-hand partner or plan to move from employee to self-employed.
When someone understands the language of business, they can connect their work to: revenue, profitability, growth, efficiency, risk, priorities, customer experience, organizational goals, and strategic tradeoffs. We aren’t talking about memorizing corporate jargon here! But we are talking about understanding how businesses function, what leaders care about, how decisions get made, and how work impacts the bigger picture.
For the rest of the year, each newsletter issue will focus on one key area of business fluency: financial literacy, customers & sales, marketing & brand, strategy & decision making, operations, people & organizational dynamics, and leadership.
From articles and podcasts, to book recommendations, courses and conferences, and insights and advice, we’ll dive into one key topic each month.
Business fluency changes the way you see your role, your leadership potential, and the opportunities available to you. And who doesn’t want that!? Subscribe today!
