I have been in sales for over thirty years and have learned a lot, or so I thought. Oddly enough, it was hanging out at our local dog park that educated me in a way my MBA never did.

We had recently moved into a neighborhood that had a nearby dog park, so I could easily walk there or drive when I was short on time or feeling lazy. I started to notice patterns in the dogs and how they related to each other. I watched how they all crowded at the entrance to greet the new dogs and sniff their butts to say hello. Some dogs were submissive; some were dominant. I saw the various ways the dogs interacted with each other, and I realized there were similarities to what I experienced in my sales job every day.

Julie Hickey