Timothy Askew is the Founder and CEO of Corporate Rain International, an elite Texas and New York-based international sales execution and consulting firm, recently rated the #1 boutique sales outsourcer in the world. Mr. Askew developed his organizational and sales talents as a Broadway producer and as the owner of an event-planning business. His clients included Citibank, Williams Real Estate, The Museum of the City of New York, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, Doubleday and Vanity Fair, to mention a few.

Mr. Askew graduated Magna Cum Laude from Emory University in Atlanta, where he received his Bachelors degree in History, and a Masters degree in Philosophy and Religion. He earned a Masters degree in Education from Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California. Additionally, in his younger days he appeared as an actor in leading roles on Broadway and on the soap opera Another World on NBC. He is an ordained minister, as well as a published poet and occasional public speaker. Mr. Askew has served on Majority Leader Senator Joe Bruno’s Small Business Advisory Council for the State of New York. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Small Business. You can learn more at www.CorporateRain.com

Politeness, courtesy, niceness, manners. These are qualities I find increasingly missing in sales and most other aspects of business. People increasingly just don’t see the need to bother with this stuff. I was reminded of this as I read Peggy Noonan’s fine, zeitgeist attuned article in the WSJ titled, “We Pay Them To Be Rude…

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In her book, Stephen Sondheim: A Life, Meryle Secrest quotes composer Steven Sondheim on his friend and colleague Leonard Bernstein’s consistent failure to produce any significant music after his great masterpiece “West Side Story.” Sondheim says Bernstein developed “a bad case of importantitis.” That is, anything he touched, by self- definition, had to have the…

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Here’s a little dinosaur wisdom: If you want to initiate new business with real corporate decision makers, write a letter. Send it snail mail, just like Grandma. Yup. That’s my brilliant marketing suggestion for the week. Send this letter with a real stamp, ideally an attractive commemorative. Do not use labels for the address, but…

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I’m insecure, dammit. I sure wish I wasn’t. Pathetic, huh, for a guy posing as an expert in such a testosterone-fueled, masculine-imaged, aggressive profession as sales? But when I started my career as an entrepreneurial salesman my hands used to shake when I met with the C-suite folk I was pitching. That doesn’t happen any…

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There was a nice column on business networking in the Wall Street Journal a while back by Anne Kadet. Anne states, “On any given night, New Yorkers have their pick of 50-odd networking events. Last week, for instance, you could have mingled with Long Island Techies, Hispanic business owners, professional comedians or ‘Mommies with Babies…

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There was a very nice personality profile of William Shatner in the New York Times by Pat Jordan. Shatner, of course, came to fame in 1966 in Star Trek. He speaks with a charming combination of resignation and bemusement about how his life has been ruled by his type-casting as Captain Kirk. This role defined…

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Sometimes you need to fire your client. God, that’s a hard one for me. After 16 years at the helm of my own company and over 700 clients, I’ve only given a client the pink slip four times (and once it was simply for their sake because they were really too busy and successful to…

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