“Social media is not an extension of your brand, it is your brand,” said social media guru Corey Perlman in a keynote address at TRSA’s Fifth Annual Marketing & Sales Summit on Oct. 25-26 in Tampa, FL. Perlman’s presentation, dubbed Social Selling: How Digital Marketing Can Strengthen Your Business, focused on why marketers must make social media a priority, drew more than 50 marketing and sales staff from the linen, uniform and facility services leaders from across North America.

“Be Prepared.” That’s the Boy Scout motto, and I’ve spoken about it before. So many sales are lost not because the customer doesn’t want to buy, but because the salesperson isn’t prepared to sell. Every salesperson THINKS that they’re prepared to sell – but few actually walk through the steps and define what it takes to make a sale happen. Worse, too many salespeople are the first to pump the brakes on the sales process. The customers should always be the first to pump the brakes. Being prepared isn’t applying artificial pressure; it’s simply moving at the customer’s pace.

Chris Durrant, 49, an independent contractor working for Kannegiesser ETECH, died on Aug. 6 while testing a dryer in a new facility under construction in Lawrence, MA, for Unitex Textile Rental Services.

Five TRSA members recently made the Selling Power “50 Best Companies to Sell For” list for 2022. This is the 22nd consecutive year the list has appeared in Selling Power magazine, which was founded in 1981.

Salespeople know what got them to where they are today. Yet salespeople and their leaders often struggle to determine what they should be training their people on when there are an unlimited number of options available. Training has to be relevant and immediately applicable if we’re going to get salespeople engaged, and that’s a challenge in and of itself.

Nearly 50 laundry executives gathered recently for a three-part TRSA virtual program that provided food-and-beverage (F&B) launderers with a forum for reviewing the issues that they face as COVID-19 downshifts from a crisis to one of many challenges.

Are you finding it hard to hire good salespeople? If you are, you’re not alone. Nearly everyone I talk to when I speak at conferences asks me about the sales hiring outlook in 2022. Too many companies are running short staffed, losing sales coverage and bandwidth, and losing opportunities. The truth is that if you have a fully staffed and skilled sales team right now, you’re probably doing a number on your competition – and you’re the exception, not the rule.

He dodged bullets in Iraq and at the same time kept journalists from Reuters and other top outlets apprised of the U.S. Marine Corps’ actions by learning a system that allowed him to concentrate on key tasks. Now Shawn Rhodes will apply those skills to help sales professionals at TRSA’s 4th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit achieve their goals.

Mike Paton, the best-selling co-author of Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business and a well-known practitioner of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), will address TRSA’s Oct. 19-21 Annual Conference in Carlsbad, CA, on Oct. 20. To offer attendees and prospects a taste of what they’ll hear in Carlsbad, we put a few questions to Paton regarding EOS and how it helps companies achieve stable growth.

Charles Ken Dowdy, Knoxville, TN, passed away on July 24. He was a great leader, mentor, coach and friend to so many in the commercial laundry industry and personal life, according to a news release.