How to sell in a lousy economy

Title: President of Olympic sponsorship and corporate sales
Age: 64
Location: New York

What he does: Sells contracts to build infrastructure for cities hosting Olympic Games.

Career highlight: In Beijing, Foss's group won 400 projects, generating $700 million in revenue, by revamping GE's sales approach and naming a point person for each stadium to oversee everything from lighting to wastewater.

Downturn pricing: "No one says, Gee, thank you for raising my price. I go to our customers and say, We'll give you all the economic data of what's going on, what's driving this in raw materials, and what a fair increase would be. We'll help educate you. And by the way, you probably need to raise your prices too."

What he avoids: "You can't go in and be superficial. You have to be careful with asking, How are your kids?"

His pitch: "Cities have seven years to build all these Olympic venues. When I walked in, I said, You've got all this infrastructure to build. We're an infrastructure company. I'm here to help you."

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