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Sales Pledge Cards

The first time I ever saw a pledge card was on a video during a lecture at Uni. A greying English corporate middle-manager was salivating on the virtues of Deming’s 14 points [http://www.deming.org/theman/teachings02.html] of quality. As a group of students, I sensed most

Reaching The Unreachable

Was in a customer near Shakespeare’s birthplace and met a decent chap called Richard now selling the best drinks dispense systems into the pub retail trade for the past seven months. One of the sales teams aim is to talk business issues with senior execs rather than delivery ones

Re-Presentation 30 Times Over

I’m currently helping a ten-strong sales team sell more of a new product, guaranteeing decent run-rate business. Upon launch a few months ago, most of them didn’t manage to sell any to their distributors/resellers, so enthusiasm waned. I just spoke to one of their guys that finally

Are you Siesmic or Geological?

Learned something illuminating the other day, doing some work for one of my customers that sell to the oil industry. I enjoyed a long telephone conversation with a chap called Ceri, a PhD in geology no less. What I learned, is that in the multi-million dollar science that is guestimating

Sales Bosses Top 5 Dangers

What are the top dangers sales operations face today? According to 2,663 such organisations polled recently, they are these 5: 1. Poorly defined sales process 2. Individual skill shortages 3. Unfocussed sales activity 4. Self-limiting belief prevails 5. Management not nurturing I see all of the above inside the

Going over their head

This is such an age-old problem, yet I cannot recall ever speaking to someone who had a genuine answer to it. The scenario is, you’re selling to one person and things are not necessarily going your way. So you must talk to their boss. What do you do? a)

Debunking Mobile Salesforce Myth?

I recently discovered a chap I befriended when he was a client of mine many moons ago was now at the sales helm of Europe’s largest lighting manufacturer/distributer. I caught up with top fella Brian and was delighted to hear him in fine fettle. We naturally got to

Huskies & Corrosive Buyers

On 18 June 07, reports emerged that Britain’s highest paid civil servant quit his £290k a year post trying to implement the world’s largest non-military IT project. The incredible price tag of £12bn is meant to bring modernisation to the UK’s useless “free” health service. I read

Knowing Where To Hit

I just came across this story, used by ‘consultants’ to justify their prices, when such rates are seen as exorbitant by buyers and much coughing and spluttering ensues. You can dress this up in all sorts of ways to suit your trade, but in essence it goes something like this:

Lessons From Retail Guru

I’ve always been interested in retailing as a profession. I could never understand as a nipper suffering drab, uninviting and unhelpful Brummie high streets in my formative years how come everyone seemed so inept. Then the landscape began to change. Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), George Davies (Next) and