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  | April 2, 2012 | | CONNECT WITH SMARTBRIEF |  |  | |  | | - Bosses should prize bravery, not obedience
Military leadership isn't just about issuing orders and expecting them to be followed blindly, says U.S. Army officer Fred Krawchuk. Rather, it's about training people to have the courage to make their own decisions and adapt rapidly to complex environments and changing situations. "Obedience is just too simple," Krawchuk says. "In a highly complex situation, anything too simple doesn't work." Inc. online/Serial CEO blog (3/30)        |  | Earn 2X rewards points on advertising costs with The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN. Designed to earn Membership Rewards® points faster:
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  | | - How to measure success in your sales organization
The performance of your sales organization isn't perfectly captured by whether it is achieving its quotas, writes David Brock. Optimal performance also involves other factors, such as efficiency and customer retention. It's important to examine how the strategy of your sales organization aligns with that of the rest of the company and to study how other sales organizations are doing, he writes. Partners in Excellence Blog (3/29) - Consumer spending highest in 7 months
Consumer spending increased 0.8% in February, the highest figure in seven months, as Americans became more confident because of the improving job market, the Commerce Department reported. "Consumer spending is going to hold its ground," said Chris Christopher Jr. of IHS Global Insight. Bloomberg (3/30) | Strategies from Sales & Marketing Management | | - The secrets of sales, marketing alignment
One key to getting sales and marketing organizations on the same page is to make sure they are focusing on the right targets, writes Nico Schinagl. "[M]arketers should ... focus on the description of the optimal candidate or the perfect point of sale (POS) the sales team should be pursuing to improve the close rate." It's also important to make sure marketing and sales departments get the appropriate compensation for their efforts, he writes. Sales & Marketing Management (4/1) | - Neat Company offers neat way to keep track of business receipts
The Neat Company has created the NeatReceipts portable scanner and software system to help business travelers keep better track of receipts, documents and business cards. Tech writer Dennis Schaal says there are a few bugs to work out, but he did find the system less cumbersome than sorting through paper documents when filing invoices or doing taxes. Sci-Tech Today (3/27) - The right way to use e-mail's BCC field
The "BCC" field in e-mail programs allows you to copy your message to another individual without the recipients in the "To" and "CC" fields knowing. If you were included in the BCC field of a message, don't hang the sender out to dry by replying to everyone who received the message, Dave Johnson writes. Also, as a sender, be sure to use the BCC field responsibly. "My rule of thumb: Never BCC someone on a thread with bad news, only good news," he writes. CBS MoneyWatch (3/30) Top five news stories selected by SmartBrief on Sales readers in the past week. - Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.
| | | Most Popular Headlines from Last Week Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers. |
- Top April Fools' Day pranks
April 1 is a time for pulling pranks, and some businesses like to get in on the act. Memorable pranks include a BBC video about flying penguins and a Google translation tool for animals. The Business Insider (4/1)  | If all you want is obedience, get a robot. Or a dog. But if you want creative solutions, you'd do better to foster a culture of moral courage."
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