Life On Mars persistence

I felt starved of genre-defining drama on TV since the turn of the new millennium.  The 90s gave us innovative gems such as This Life, Between The Lines and Cracker, with even the Americans rising above their normal moral evangelism with the first season of NYPD Blue.  But what’s

Ask for the order, please

I’ve been doing loads of interviews over the past ten days or so.  And it’s really starting to do my head in.  Spending a good while on the phone with potential candidates is a winner, yet even when they sound fairly good, it can all fall to pieces

Against something cheaper? Try "Priming"

Came across a salesguy called Stuart Glimstead at one of my customers earlier today, who had a response for when a prospect starts going on about cheaper competition. His first retort is simply “why do you think they’re cheaper?” He finds this begins to place a seed of doubt

Training isn't Permament

I’ve long got frustrated at salesforces that have a boat-load of training, which then never seems to make a difference.  What typically happens, is that any info imparted goes in one ear and out the other.  Actual ‘Recall’ of what was run through can be pretty low even the

Sigmoid Thinking

I had to run through some old notes from a few years ago earlier this afternoon to find something on how seismic shifts in sales strategy can be made to happen.  I came across notes from two Directors, speaking at company sales conventions.  Both were done around the same time

Future History philosophy

For the past few years I’ve known a fella called Mike Witchell, a sales manager at one of my customers.  He’s one of the good guys, albeit with a dangerous obsession in motorcycle racing at the weekends. I’ve just come across an old email of his explaining

2nd hand car salesman essentials

Just watched a reality TV show (Alan Sugar’s Apprentice) pitting two teams against each other to sell cars in an enormous London car supermarket,  They got initial training from an expert sales manager.  His most-used phrase ended up being “End Of”, as he kept having to give bollockings and

Glass Must Be Half-Full

I was at a sales meeting of a company with 21 reps the other day.  There’s a legacy battle going on there, as historically many of the reps were actually Agents.  That is, non-salaried employees, paid on a commission-only basis for their specific, exclusive territory. Now, you’d think

Wheel Of Productivity

Came across this technique during the week which I think’s got legs.  A fella called Dylan Jones was the only guy out of his 20-odd strong team that wasn’t pitching the new wonder-product they had by mere unique features and benefits.  All the other guys are saying ‘look

Avoiding Feature Minutiae

I’m really enjoying some work I’m doing with a tool company at the moment.  From a seemingly remote North Welsh town, they make and distribute anything from pliers, trowels, padlocks and the like.  And they’ve made market leader into electrical wholesalers, so have clearly done things pretty