Salespodder (Page 390)

More issues

Diva Dressing Down

I caught a snatch of a female-orientated glossy with thumbnails of clothes designers depicting their routes to success. Being a rep you’ll understand, I was reading it upside-down, as a woman in a cafe sitting opposite me tucked in. One quoted a former fashion-maker, Jean Muir, as providing a

Terminal Decline Foresight

What happens when two cost-obsessed, investment-averse organisations embark upon the largest endeavour of its kind on the planet, where one has ownership transeferred during the project to a firm with no previous experience of that industry, and the other has repeatedly proven themselves as nothing more than an inept bus

Presidential Pitching

The London press overflowed with images of French President Sarkozy’s wife, a former Italian model yesterday. It’s amazing how such a splash of celebrity glamour practically eliminated coverage of the real serious issue of precisely what it was he travelled to say. I caught glimpses of selections from

Links In Emails

I sent a brilliant email earlier this morning. I’m sure you know the kind. You spend a good few minutes planning it in your head. Then fire up the word processor. Re-editing makes sure your killer points are to the fore. Headings are added and emboldened, bullets introduced, italics

Why Are We Disregarded?

A customer of mine had a right old rant, going off on one when speaking with me late last week. He runs a sales effort. In England, such people are called Sales Directors. Elsewhere, titles may differ (VP Sales, CSOs) but the role remains the same. He was flummoxed. Why

Next Year's Corporate Hospitality

I tried to run a client jolly once. As my customers have always tended to be sales people, I thought they’d really appreciate the TLC. I myself have enjoyed these treats, especially geting to play the Belfry’s Brabazon course just before wallopping the Yanks in the Ryder Cup

Retail Shelf Fill Lesson

Caught the back-end of a reality telly show that could have been quite promising, all about how ordinary members of the public were given the chance to pitch for putting a food product onto the shelves of gigantic Tesco. For those unfamiliar with this supermarket brand, they’re often accused

Squirrels With Nuts

A customer of mine shared some winning insight during a delightful half-hour chat late last night about how to avoid problems with seasonal downturns. There is a month in the year during which none of his prospects ever find time to see him. For ease of description, let’s call

Thought Experiments

There I was, dreaming of a glamorous sun-drenched life, having to wait around in London’s Waterloo station as a gale howled outside whilst my friend’s train was inevitably delayed by the NHS-proportioned inefficiency that is the UK’s rail network. A touch too early to adjourn to the

Another Call Centre Casualty

For any reps struggling with back-office or customer service issues here’s a current example not only proving that the trend to use offshore call centres is reversing apace, but more tellingly, if you’re running your own telesales campaign, you need to train in more than just the promo