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The Purple Suede Was Different

Just done some impromptu training-cum-problem solving on a cold-call quandry. Remember the old days? A pats used to run along the lines of ‘send me your brochure’, then every time you’d ring back, you’d get ‘I’ve not had chance to read it yet, but I will then

Small Talk Common Ground

Establishing rapport with a prospect is of course essential. Making someone feel comfortable with you is a vital pre-requisite towards getting an order, especially if you’re not the cheapest player in town. But trying to work out how to initiate such front talk can be tricky the first time

Playing Personal Reputation

Thoroughly enjoyed speaking to a rep at one of my customers today called Sam. I always chuckle along during our chats on the phone. Especially when like just now he’s in gale-swept freezing Leeds and I’m in 30°C Cape Town 🙂 He certainly sounded like he’s on

The Lamb's Really Good

It’s so rare that when it happens I’m compelled to celebrate. Someone in retail knows how to sell. Gavin is the kind of South African that gives you hope the country can in fact survive the lunacy endemic in the current regime and give rise to a true

The 'Not' Description

One of my cold-callers is having success by explaining what we do, through stating what we do not do. All our suspects run sales teams. They often (mischievously) claim to receive hundreds of calls a day trying to woefully peddle them stuff they already have and don’t need replacing.

Turnaround One-Liners

Here’s an interesting initiative from inside a customer of mine. Their Sales Ops support has just gained an excitable fresh momentum from one of their best and longest serving reps being awarded a sabbatical, with nationwide remit to improve individual sales skills. One of the first things he’s

Turning The Tables

A surprising source of interview tips came from daytime Goodhope FM this morning. They wheeled an ‘expert’ in called (I think) Kashi to answer listener questions in-between snorily predictable synthetic R&B. The two posers he spent longest on were: Where do you see yourself in five years? and

What Do Buyers Actually Do?

One of my customer’s salesreps, Tony, was determined to impress upon me how appalled he is with buyers at the moment. He sells engineering consumables, and his patch breaks down like this: 1600 – prospect companies with potential to buy 370 – customers, outfits that have bought 200 – number of organisations

Focus On Emotion

A senior sporting administrator just swapped circket for football. Richard Bevan [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3174813.ece] is apparently adept at raising the influence and profile of a previously ignored constituency within a game. When representing professional cricketers, he helped garner them extra clout in part

Obituary: John Harvey-Jones

I fondly remember my addiction to all things John Harvey-Jones in the early 90s. The genre-starting Troubleshooter was essential viewing for anyone remotely interested in proper business. His consultative successes soon racked up. These included: * Apricot Computers were told to ditch hardware and focus solely on software; next year profits