Sales Promotion Insanity

Met an interesting chap today called Nigel who ran a company with a highly lucrative future I’m sure.  His main excitement (quite rightly) came from the ability to got people away from the “evil” of Outlook, and instead, actually be able to know what is in all their emails, actively using the knowledge sitting inside them, by in effect, having a front-end that is a portal into your email, which automatically tells you the ‘hot threads’ and any other vital stuff, from around them.  The idea is taking shape at www.mailspaces.com. 

Anyway, part of our discussion, was about what sales managers should do, and it was another reminder of what he described as the ‘insanity’ of where you take your best sales person, by definition surely cavalier, take them off the patch, and make them a manager.  Crackers.  Then over my lunch, I read the blog of the best English-paper cricket coverage (from the Guardian) and although not particularly a fan of Mike Selvey, he gave an awesome quote about why someone had been appointed captain above him, when he expected the job.  It was cad Phil Edmonds, with the top-brass mistakenly feeling “he’d be better a leader than led”.  Astonishing.

On a more important note 🙂 Freddie is absolutely the right man to lead us in Aus this winter.