Sign in Subscribe

salespodder

salespodder

http://salespodder.com

Sticktoitiveness

Donald Trump. Hardly the person budding entrepreneurs should be modelling themselves on. Still, he somehow commanded airtime on Skynews with Adam Boulton the other day. He was asked what it took to be successful in running your own business. Two main elements struck him. Neither are earth-shattering insight, true, yet

Zuckerberg Mission

Plenty of soundbite-sized clips were all over the telly and web these past few days of the Facebook founder’s first public utterings [http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/zuckerberg-wrote-all-2179-words-of-facebooks-s-1-founder-letter-on-his-phone/] since the IPO. I was struck by how many times he stated what he considered to be the Facebook mission;

Backstory

With the best ever, “happy and glorious” Olympics dutifully provided by London, this Monday saw the triumphant parade of the home athletes. Mention was often made by the covering commentators of ‘backstory’. Especially when lauding the paralympians. I first came across the concept of backstories when as a kid I

Spam-vassing

Like canvassing, but via spam. Another in my occasional series by highlighting rubbish that finds its way past my inbox filters. > Hello [my first name] I hope all is well at [my company name]. Here’s the follow up link to that email I sent you a week or

Chunking

You go to someone you truly feel will have their lives changed by your wares. You pitch the big picture. You’re really pumped up. But rather than inpsire, you daunt the prospect. The big picture is scary, too big, less a mere picture more a sky-filling tapestry. Consequently, they

Creating Breakthrough Products

Here’s an interesting textbook from 2002 aimed at those tasked with coming up with new product ideas. The authors are professor of mechanical engineering and industrial design no less. Their main thrust was that, to use their marketing-speak, i) form and function must fulfil fantasy, and ii) you must

Brevity Enmity

I was delighting in the culture of a company I was working with recently. When it comes to email, they approach it like text messaging. Particularly in the early stages of the project, I received no mails longer than a single sentence. I naturally applauded such concise dealings. They never

Post Demo Questionnaire

Here’s something I was reminded of recently from my software days. I think it holds worthy application for any product that leads to a full-on presentation in front of an audience of more than two. It comes from my time creating a need from a standing start. Where a

Discount Impact On Profit Margin

Here’s a sales tool that an employee of “a leading UK manufacturer of architectural masonry products” took along to their next company (in a different field) and shared with their new sales colleagues way back at the turn of the Millennium. The intention was to remind salespeople out in

Put Off Procrastination

20% of us are apparently procrastinators. On my last day in Blighty for a while, I caught a Radio 4 show on this topic. There have been some successful people so afflicted. Author Douglas Adams was famously twelve years late on one particular book deadline. It’s difficult to see