Topic

grapevine

A collection of 633 issues

Half-a-Billion Buying Flags

The murky waters of large public sector procurement offered a small trickle of clarity recently regarding a winning $500bn auction share by the UK government. Along with their Indian partners, a total of a cool billion bought a “bankrupt [https://todayheadline.co/uk-ministers-were-warned-of-financial-risk-to-500m-oneweb-deal/] ” satellite communications business; OneWeb. Indeed quite the

3 Brand Purpose Questions

I caught a one-time business journalist [https://twitter.com/thejamesmax] speak off-the-cuff about brands. From where their core focus should hail when they – as is so often inevitable – wander away from their previous and once successful thrust. A big lover of any story with the word “fiasco” in the headline,

Alred Super-Coach Top Tip Trio

I caught an hour where Dave Alred [https://davealred.com/] talked through his approach to fostering improvement. He first came to public prominence back in 2003. As kicking coach to England rugby World Cup winning fly-half Jonny Wilkinson [http://salespodder.com/avoiding-jonnys-regret-zone/]. Here’s three of his current top-line pronouncements.

Two Tequilas!

On the day of my ceremonial birthday, I’m reminded of a recent time, after all the years walking into bars, how incredible it is when something ‘new’ happens. Sales-savy too. Nearing the counter, I enquired of my companion, ‘what do you fancy?’ Immediately, one of the two bartenders slammed

14yo Flip Flop Choice

Flip-flops, thongs, slops, zories, plakkies. Summers over the past decade has seen a tough battle for your beachwear -sandal cash. Brazilian firms have taken a strong hold, led by Havaianas, with (not-so?) copycat upstarts Ipanema gaining ground. I happened across a market stand exclusively selling both. An array larger than

Cross-Selling Symphony

The incoming Chairman of American telecoms conglomerate Comcast gets plenty of positive press. Sector-beating stock price growth during his decade of acquisitive tenure as media arm NBCUniversal CEO. Apart from the voracious buying up of expensive broadcasting rights and other media giants, one policy appears to have borne organic fruit;

Three-Year Itch

What does the natural relationship graph look like for your sector? I remember fondly the business IT cycle I first sold into. We knew how often people were likely to review their current set-up. And how likely they were to then replace their existing supplier. Such maths certainly helped with

Data Drowning Information Overload Anti-Stalling

I blogged recently touching on an alarm bell. When someone does not want something to be bought, and they attempt to drown proponents in data. Endless reams of the stuff. Then I came across this piece for my anti-inertians dreams; The Status Quo Is Risky, Too [https://hbr.org/2014/

What Kind Of Deal You Looking For?

An old-hand relayed to me their experience of meetings snagged by unending tech talk. When a buyer and vendor with a technical bent go ever deeper into and longer around the intricacies of the bid it usually spells disaster. If not a sibling then certainly a cousin of Happy Ears

Do You Reference The Predecessor?

Here’s a real-life message I heard dropped on a sales call the other day: > “Hi Vicky, it’s [name] from [org] here. I dealt with your predecessor Dan and would love to speak to you about some events we’ve got coming up. My number is … and I look