When the topic of customer satisfaction arises, the modern mindset leaps immediately to the traditional retail realm of B2C relationships and starts compiling all the exciting new ways to keep track of, as well as boost their success. Yet, this same mindset is becoming increasingly essential in the world of B2B, since a customer-focused approach dictates the long-term success and the quality of relationships built in both B2B and B2C. You may not create a standard questionnaire or stick to a classic social media scheme to delve deeper into the minds of your customers, but B2B is in dire need of redirecting their focus to their customer pool.

The things you repeatedly do define your quality of life. Whether they're for your physical condition, emotional outlook, or level of productivity, the things you repeatedly do every day define your quality of life. Here are the daily habits several executives credit for the success they have achieved.

1. Set up predetermined browser tabs to open automatically.

"Thanks to Chrome's Startup Settings, I've created an essential daily habit - having my predetermined browser tabs open automatically for my review.

The common courtesies of asking questions and listening have given way to an urgent need to speak and be heard. Recently, a colleague and I were at a dinner function with a group of leaders from a client company. We found ourselves seated at a table with a new member of the executive team, whom we were meeting for the first time. We eased into the conversation with small talk about sports and weather and then we went deeper inquiring about his family, his career, his thoughts on the industry.

Q: A key leader on your team is leaving. How do you ensure the transition is successful for the leader and the rest of your staff?

1. Schedule and plan for their departure

Losing any valuable asset to a company or organization can be tough. Address the situation as soon as possible and also have a schedule and plan in place before their departure. This will allow for team members to understand their new roles and how to adapt without such an individual in place. Also try and appreciate the departure, versus leaving on a sour note. - Zac Johnson, Blogging.org

The most neglected work of leadership is listening. The reason? It’s hard work. If leadership is about others, listening is about leadership. 4 reasons you hate to listen:

1. A squirrel’s attention span. Busy leaders look like squirrels caught in traffic.

2. Dripping faucets. Nagging issues drip in the back of your mind. But if you listened more, maybe there would be fewer nagging issues.

3. A Grinch heart. It’s hard to listen when your heart is three sizes too small. Listening is caring.

4. Dragster ears. Ears are about 4X faster than tongues. You can’t wait for the other person to finally get to the point.

Struggling to hire, some companies are relaxing corporate drug policies. Employers are struggling to hire workers in the tightening U.S. job market. Marijuana is now legal in nine states and Washington, D.C., meaning more than one in five American adults can eat, drink, smoke or vape as they please. The result is the slow decline of pre-employment drug tests, which for decades had been a requirement for new recruits in industries ranging from manufacturing to finance.

By now, most debt collectors know about carriers’ efforts to label or block illegal “robocalls.” The FCC provided carriers the green light to block such calls in the FCC’s July 2015 TCPA Order. There is little debate now that illegal calls can be segregated for blocking. Indeed, doing so reduces the number of illegal calls that would otherwise be completed. Likewise, there is no debate that the algorithms employed to identify such calls are not perfect, and occasionally mistakes will be made by classifying legitimate calls as illegal robocalls.

When it comes to sales emails, the less you say, the greater your odds of getting a response. If that sounds counter-intuitive, consider this: our work lives are bursting with communications, from social networks and emails to on-the-go conference calls and even text messages. Thanks to that, people no longer have time or patience to read a lengthy email in order to get to the main idea of your message. Even a slightly long email can annoy a potential buyer and put any possible deal in jeopardy.

Many of us have been taught for years that the key to sales is overcoming clients’ objections and comforting them when they express concern over your product or service. Your organization might, in fact, spend a great deal of time teaching salespeople what to do when a customer raises an objection. Unfortunately, at that point, you’ve more than likely already lost. You’re dealing with objections as they come and operating from a position of self-defense.

Being able to constantly innovate means seeing opportunity and seizing it, but it also means knowing when to let something go. William Faulkner is believed to have said, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” In business, I find it’s the same feeling to build something up, push it out into the world and occasionally let it go. The line between a genius who gets nowhere and a genius innovator is being able to say “no.” Here’s how entrepreneurs can avoid becoming too attached to ideas, say no to distractions and keep moving ahead toward greater outcomes - even if it means leaving your darlings behind sometimes.

Business owners want their companies to succeed. While success is defined differently depending on whom you talk to, the most common goals center on growth, profitability and strategic operation. If you can help clients achieve their core goals, you’ll acquire a bigger list of satisfied, long-term customers. This is not rocket science. So why are some B2B providers not yet getting it? Far too many leaders are sending the wrong messages to prospective and existing customers.

With five years of experience in software sales, I’ve worked with some of the best brands on the planet, but I’ve also been put in situations where clients wanted out of their contracts. There will almost definitely be at least one client who wants out of their contract with you this year. It is an issue you will be faced with. Clients break contracts for a variety of reasons. Sometimes cash flow issues keep them from paying their bills. Other times they just decide to go in a different direction or they're dissatisfied because your product or service doesn't meet their expectations.

Obsessive micromanaging has never worked, but calling shots over task execution used to. Not anymore. For years, one of my VPs always got the highest employee-review score of any manager in my company. The second-highest score usually went to one of the direct reports he’d personally trained. I recently discovered the unexpected reason why, and it all boils down to a relatively simple formula that’s nonetheless easy for managers to miss. Here’s the reason why (plus a handy chart that spells it all out).

Almost half of Americans say they’ve worked for a mean boss. One-fifth of Americans find their workplace hostile or threatening, and more than half say they work under “unpleasant” conditions. And those numbers don’t include those afraid to speak up. These days, more attention is being focused on “bad bosses,” especially men who take advantage of their position, like billionaire Steve Wynn who just last month resigned as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed his casino employees. 

We're all buried in our email inboxes. Try not to make life harder for people by committing these egregious email errors. Emails have become a necessary evil in the workplace. I say evil because my inbox right now has 169 unread emails, which makes me quiver with anxiety. But that's nothing compared to some of my friends and colleagues. I've seen inboxes with 3,000+ unread emails! No surprise, given that by next year, we will send nearly 250 billion emails to each other a day.

We asked readers for their favorite interview questions - and we weren't disappointed. Maybe your favorite interview question is one of the most common interview questions. Maybe it's one of the most common behavioral interview questions. Or maybe you have a less conventional interview question you like to ask, like those asked by these company founders and CEOs. What is your favorite interview question? 

For years, debt collectors have complained about the Catch-22 they face under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) - provide too much detail and face liability for confusing the unsophisticated consumer, but provide not enough detail and face liability for omitting information necessary to that same unsophisticated consumer. In Delgado v. Client Services, Inc., 17 C 4364, Judge Sara L. Ellis of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois acknowledged that dilemma while dismissing Delgado’s FDCPA claim.

If there's one entrepreneur who knows sales, it's Kevin Harrington. The serial entrepreneur built a $5 billion business, founded the Entrepreneurs' Organization (YEO), and pioneered the infomercial business and "As Seen on TV" category (beginning with Ginsu Knives). In addition, as one of the original sharks on ABC's "Shark Tank," he has advised dozens of other entrepreneurs.

Anyone who has had the briefest passing fantasy of “being in charge” has entertained thoughts of how things would finally be done “the right way,” i.e. “the way I think they should be.” It’s only natural to believe that we have something valuable to contribute, but leadership isn’t about making people do what you say, the way you say to do it. That is essentially coercion, and when “leadership” entails getting people to do things against their will, it’s on course for disaster. Though leadership includes power that is used judiciously and with thought, leadership and power are not one and the same.

Many new leaders silently struggle in their leadership role. They avoid difficult conversations about performance because they do not have the confidence or the skill to coach others or facilitate change. Or, they do not have the critical skills to determine the root problem of poor performance, so their decisions are based on assumptions rather than analytical thinking. These managerial mistakes contribute to a culture of mistrust and disempowerment. Executives can use this short list to determine the root causes of leadership failures within your organization.