I consider myself a frequent flyer, flying roughly 200 times a year on mostly mainstream airlines.

There is no prize in sales for second place. It's win or nothing. The masters know this and strive for - they fight for - that winning edge.

The key in mastering any kind of sales is switching statements about you and how great you are and what you do, to statements about them, and how great they are and how they will produce more and profit more from ownership of your product or service.

Most salespeople would like to think of themselves as being rock stars, but they don't display the talent to match their definition.

Essentially, I spent most of my childhood with my mother and my older sister, and I suppose I had rather a romantic vision of how things might be if there were men around; I saw myself in a country house with six children and a garden. That has never been achieved - and I still regret it.

As a child marooned in a post-war South London backwater with no ready cash and a bafflingly dysfunctional family, I had to glean my amusement wherever I could.

As many of you know I travel a good bit and do not get to see my friends and family as much as I would like.

I don't usually get star struck, but I met Sir Paul McCartney randomly on Sunset Boulevard a few years ago, and I lost it! I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, and I didn't know how to speak. It was crazy. He was nice enough to talk to my family and me for 10 minutes, but I remember babbling away about nonsense.