Enter FOCIS® Contest: Cash Prizes!

April 18, 2025
Phil Krone

We’re looking for the best FOCIS®  consultative selling stories of 2014 for our Ninth Annual FOCIS® Contest. The deadline for submitting entries is Friday, February 20.

If at any time you completed our four-session FOCIS® Consultative Selling course, you’re eligible to complete the official FOCIS®  Contest Entry Form. Your story, however, must be from the 2014 calendar year.

The best entries,  as judged by a panel of our senior consultants, will earn a cash prize and public recognition in our “Productive Insights” column. The cash prizes for this year are $500 for first place, $300 for second, and $200 for third.

“Productive Insights” is a monthly column on marketing and selling that’s distributed to several thousand business leaders, including presidents, owners, and CEOs of middle market companies. It’s great publicity for you and your company.

Any use of FOCIS®, large or small, qualifies.  Your entry might be for a big sale, an advance, a longer meeting attributable to your FOCIS® skills, an important persuasion between you and your co-workers, or even among you and your family or friends.  The principles and practices of FOCIS® training offer valuable ways to move just about any conversation forward.

The Shot! And the Importance of Discovery

By Phil Krone, President • April 28, 2025
Asking the questions that give you the confidence you need to win in sales. 

How do they do it?

By Phil Krone, President • March 22, 2025
This faith-based not-for-profit achieves 40 percent year-over-year growth for 17 years by applying well-known business principles, one in particular. Why can so few businesses even dream of such growth?

B2B Selling vs. B2G Selling: What’s the difference?

By Phil Krone, President • February 17, 2025
Are you selling business to business or business to government or both? There are similarities but also differences that need to be recognized to optimize your results.

Small Assignment, Big Impact

By By Phil Krone, President • January 17, 2025
Last year after a talk I gave at the Small Business Expo on Business to Business Selling (B2B) , a woman asked for my card because she wanted to meet to tell me about her business and learn more about mine. When we eventually got together she shared that her start-up company’s goal was to console consumers who had suffered the loss of a loved one directly, as she had. But my talk had inspired a new idea: assist funeral homes to improve their services by showing more empathy to their customers who were struggling as she was. I sensed that my talk gave her confidence that, despite the challenges, her business could succeed. What I didn’t realize was that this small assignment for a start-up would eventually have such a big impact on her business as well as an industry. 

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Five: Vision Sets the Course

By Phillip Krone • December 18, 2024
To date we have covered the Sales, Information, Tactical, and Marketing Plan Levels. Although the fifth level is the last to be discussed, it is often what sets a business in motion when it is founded. Today we will illustrate marketing to support a vision by discussing two very successful businesses.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Four: Planning the Work, Working the Plan

By By Phil Krone, President • December 5, 2024
As a reminder, the Five Levels of Marketing are (1) Sales, (2) Information/Data/Analytics, (3) Tactical or Campaign, (4) Marketing or Program, and (5) Vision/Strategic. We’ve explored each of the first three levels in separate columns in August, September, and October. They are available on our website's Productive Insights collection.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Three: Tactical Sales Campaigns in the Field

By By Phil Krone, President • October 16, 2024
Using intelligence from prior levels leads to revenue-building sales campaigns on the ground in real time.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Two: Putting Data and Information to Work

By Phil Krone, President • September 16, 2024
Tracking key types of data each month provides insights that can build a highly productive marketing plan.

The Five Levels of Marketing

By Phil Krone, President • August 14, 2024
The Five Levels - Sales: Prospecting, qualifying, discovery, presentation, demonstration, proposal writing and closing; Information/Data/Analytics; Tactical or Campaign; Marketing or Program; Vision/Strategic

The Question That Leads to a Positive Decision (The Texas Hospital Story)

By Phil Krone, President • July 18, 2024
If you believe you have ADHD, you can be more successful by scheduling fewer first meetings and spending that time on more second and third meetings with qualified prospects. For our client, that meant cancelling half the medical CFO conventions his sales rep was planning to attend and investing more time following up with the CFO prospects he had already met. When your discovery is not productive, step back and restart at the point the discussion began to be about whose system is better. That’s an argument you are not going to win. Don’t waste years in prospect meetings in which you ask the same questions every time and get the same answers. Either decide that your product or service isn’t right for this prospect and move on—or broaden your discovery to find a need behind the need. In this hospital case, the hidden need was a fear that because no outside vendors had audited their system they might be in violation of regulations that an outsider would spot right away.
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