Salespodder (Page 413)

More issues

Does anyone use crm???

Another day, another prospect, another first meeting and yet another guy saying they’ll not bother again with crm. This time it was with the MD (and notional head of sales) of a trendy commercial lighting operation. Four years ago they came to the UK from Denmark with one salesrep.

Immediately State Uniques

Nothing new to those into their marketing ideas and all things ‘usp’, getting across what is unique is critical in the very first few seconds you speak to someone according to Richard Farleigh [http://www.farleigh.com], he of Dragons’ Den fame and “prolific investor” in UK small/start-up firms.

Persuading Kids To Eat Proper Food

There’s a ton of press in England right now about our epidemic of obese children. They’re all spending too much time on the internet, playing computer games, doing zilch exercise, and eating chips, pizza and sweets. What’s this got to do with my sales-help crusade? Well, an

It's Never All Or Nothing

I’m a huge advocate of spreading good news. Many sales teams get bogged down in mires of negativity, argument and insubordination. Surely a better place to be is where everyone is aligned to similar initiatives, and focus on joined-up accomplishment. Lamentably, this is rarely the case. One guy (a

"To Be Honest…."

This phrase has always irritated the hell out of me. When someone says this, it can often suggest the last thing they’re being is truthful. Yesterday I managed to get hold of a chap that I’d been referred to by someone I’d met last week for the

Beware The Snidey Salesrep

Met a fella at a huge car parts distributor. Good to meet him, as he’d risen to the top after starting out a van-driving sales rep aged just 17. He mentioned a couple of stories where recently he’d needed to reprimand a couple of his reps. Quality link-selling

Loving "the James Bond stuff"

Been doing quite a bit of repping recently, and in an oil industry software supplier, heard a heart-warning tale of how ‘service’ personnel were contributing to sales lead generation. These technical guys were in and out of customers all the time, yet their golden knowledge wasn’t being leveraged properly.

Dragons Fall On Den’s Sword

I’ve always got off on ‘pop idol for start-ups’ showDragons’ Den [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/]. And Wednesday, with the new series about to kick-off, my heroes are exposed as muppets. My disenchantment, which means I’m now ambivalent to the whole show, stems from knowledge of ‘one

Why bother with crm?

Met a fella who ran operations for one of two national regions within a huge £80m turnover motor parts distributor just now called Jack, or as the guys in the telesales room called him, ‘Jacko’. They’ve been going for donkey’s years, experienced decent growth, and a sea-change in

The Sundown Rule

Introduced ourselves to a new manager at one of my customers today. He’d served food/drink retailers all his lengthy career by the sounds of it. Having recently joined his new employers (supplying drink dispense kit to restaurants/bars) he ran me through a presentation just delivered on his