If you ever take a trip to the Rocky Mountains, you will discover a most amazing plant, bright green in color, known as saxifrage. This plant grows on the flat surfaces of steep rocky slopes. You might wonder how any plant can withstand winds and storms when it has no soil in which to anchor its roots? Well, this plant makes its own soil for its roots; its seeds contain a strong acid which rots the rock and by so doing, develops its own soil.

Okay, okay - no one said sales would be easy. You work to impress, to follow up and of course, to get the prospect to buy. In many cases, you are put off, caught off guard or even blindsided by people who are 'tough cases.' No matter how difficult the prospect, there are three verbal responses you should avoid like the plague. Their negative impressions will last much longer than your sales call ever will.

June saw the completion of nine months of rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero. Nine months, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, men and women worked to ensure that everyone who could be, would be recovered from the site of 9/11.

It seems to me that risks fall into two categories: healthy and dumb. Now, this doesn't include the risks we hope we never have to take: emergency situations that require a do-or-die, fight-or-flight decision. No, I am talking the less dramatic but more common challenges we often face in business: to move higher or plunge recklessly.