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salespodder

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Gastropub Food Growth

Having recently spent many fun-filled days with, among others, a friend that owns a cool chain of London pubs as England somehow salvaged a draw in the Cape Town Test, I learnt plenty about the intricacies of running a gastropub. One insight was when an order in Capetonian institution, Forresters,

Initiator Or Finisher?

A discussion I enjoyed the other day was with a chap holding a doctorate in public administration. He described someone as having a reputation for being a project initiator rather than project finisher. Nothing wrong in that at all, except that the person in question erroneously thought of themselves as

Good Accounts Make Good Friends

This is a phrase I heard a highly experienced accountant say in a meeting the other day. Its context was that a partnership was in play between a producer and a distributor. The one that made the product had only got into the market in the first place by teaming

Sales Report Recording Trends?

I downloaded a frustratingly sparse and primitive white paper the other day on ‘sales 2.0’ which, for all its banal pronouncements, did feature one juicy observation: > “Cold calling, qualification, appointment setting, and customer service are important steps in sales, but they are not the best use of highly

The One Minute Sales Person Review

I recently came across these review notes for a meeting ten short years ago. The bite-sized book by American Spencer Johnson is widely known. Here’s what I wrote back then: Over 4 million people have apparently drank from the fountain of this guru’s knowledge. That said, there are

First-Run Placements Plan

News from a client of mine about how they successfully launched a new item during the past twelve months of torture. Their new product was a piece of IT wizardry, typically bought through leasing, worth around €30k. In their own words, they decided to separate their sales potential into: >

Never Get Distracted By The Commission

Talk of the huge sums of money on offer at the men’s tennis ATP World Tour finals ($1.6m to an undefeated victor for a week’s work) reminded me of a reflective anecdote recounted by ubiquitous 80s snooker champ, Steve Davis. He was asked if he ever thought

What's Your Top-Line Indicator?

A thoroughly enjoyable meeting at a client the other day uncovered a remarkably simple approach to funnel management. Selling a combination of fairly big-ticket items (mixing ‘hardware’ & ‘software’), the typical account manager monthly revenue target is 50k. Whilst obviously the main figure, there are two other numbers of prominence.

Tin Men, A Salesman's Review

A cheeky little movie from 1987, it’s really a tale of the search for revenge between two guys that meet at the scene of a car prang. Set in Baltimore, 1963, the backdrop is that all the players sell “aluminum siding” (metal paneling for a home’s exterior). This

What The Top Person Wants To Hear

During a recent training event on how to deal with the most senior of people at your buyer organisation, part of the journey involved my asking of the assembled salesforce what each considered such a top person wanted to hear from a “rep”, the first time you met. In their