Salespodder (Page 328)

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The Prospect Whisperer

Here’s a cuddly parallel that struck me as I enjoyed festive downtime. Now, I’m not one for pets. So I was amazed when National Geographic’s Dog Whisperer telly program held my attention. Our hero Cesar Millan [www.cesarsway.com] ‘rehabilitates dogs and trains people’. He takes on

Acetate Ideas

I recently found a folder of work I did almost twenty-five years ago. It’s now been packed off to recycling. I couldn’t resist a rummage, and found a batch of old-fashioned ‘transparencies’. In the days before omnipresent computers, if you wanted to pre-prepare slides, you could go through

Paul S. Goldner Price Or Value The Choice Is Yours

This was the title of a presentation given at a ‘software for sales’ event I attended in Chicago way back in 1998. It in part deserves recollection as being a needle of personal selling skill discussion in a haystack of mainly technical monologues. [http://www.redhotsales.com] Despite the ancient

Old Sales Activity Survey

A quick blog on a mid/late Nineties survey into how the average sales person spends their time. Attributed to sales trainerCargill [http://www.gilcargill.com], it encompasses five straightforward possibilities. > 34% Admin tasks 32% Waiting, Travelling 15% with Customers 14% with Prospects 5% Service Calls Recognise these figures

Engaging Question

Here’s a reminder of a well-used and highly effective presentation tactic. This time it comes via dusty old notes from a 1998 Chicago conference I attended. The speaker was then assessing sales system projects, called Timothy McMahon at Labyrinth Research. Outlining his optimal ‘7-step implementation plan’, he sought to

Reduce Defections - Chicago SFA Show 1998

Here’s a way to end the year. Celebrate when you’re over 100% of target. Throw out a wadge of old papers. The latter generated a week’s worth of blogging too. Happy New Year! I cleared out an old box of work gubbins, only to find a huge

Capt Strauss Focus

Has there been a more one-sided Ashes day’s play in living memory? Not one single observer seems to think so. England’s dominance over woeful Australia was as superior as it was surprising. With the Perth hammering metered out by the hosts, you’d have though momentum was all

Crocodile Fight

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the festive bash of a company in Cape Town the other night. The Chief Exec gave a rabble-rousing review of the year. He described how their sales growth had come in the face of much larger multi-nationals, all with huge, better funded

Overused Buzzwords

The business network site LinkedIn recently published its assessment of the most overused buzzwords among its 85 million personal profiles. It recommends that you overhaul your pitches quick “and lose those clichéd terms”, “those ambiguous ones that really don’t tell you anything”. The Big Offending Four, each of which

100 Word Story

I only ever seem to see the Reader’s Digest in health centre waiting rooms. I recently discovered their intriguing 100-word story competition [http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/magazine/179-Reader's-Digest-Main/1382-Web-Exclusives-100-word-story.html] . It alerted my sales antennae for two reasons. I’d blogged before [https://salespodder.com/political-elevator-pitch/