Topic

grapevine

A collection of 653 issues

Deliver Business Case With Conviction

I’ve always enjoyed attending my customer’s workshops that are run by a respected person from elsewhere in their organisation. This is because they have instant and greater gravitas with the reps than an external trainer would, and such reverence allows them to push the reps further. Sessions like

The Power Of One

One of my customer’s sales management team were recently summoned to a European conference where new solution sales techniques were passed down from a central corporate training resource. One particular topic I know they all liked was about talking credible numbers when it came to benefits. All too often,

Would You Buy Tat?

The majority of sales teams I help are not the cheapest in their space. For some, far from it, and they take on the perennial struggle of having to justify themselves against a large hole in the floor through which their competition’s price has just dropped. Many a salesteam

How Special Do Your Customers Feel?

Encouraging greater propensity to continue buying is a topic I constantly grapple with in my selling. Most of my clients buy my services month after month. This means the longer I keep them as happy customers, the longer they put food on my plate at a decent margin. Reading the

Closing Yellow Pages Trap Door

One of my recent customers is an extremely forward thinking company from the sales systems and support perspective. Even down to one of their top reps demanding they ran a sales blog of success. That very same fella, John from East Anglia described one of the facets to his account

Preventing Dissatisfaction Dip

A sales guy at a customer of mine articulated this issue to me beautifully the other day. A relationship proved to be healthy by the placing of an order for our wonderful piece of kit can deteriorate without us knowing post-sale. Setting expectations whilst prospecting can prevent this. Guiding the

Impact Players

I was lucky enough to just take on a team of Italians in a football friendly that I’ve played against twice before over in Rome. This time the match was at Leyton Orient’s training facilities in North London. With a large squad, banter was flowing before the game

Restaurant Lessons Shine

Twice this week I’ve been out in Cape Town. To Beuna Vista with my mate Brandon in Green Point, and Caveau next to Newlands rugby stadium with a crowd of us. Beuna Vista has always been a favourite haunt of mine, and I meet Bran many Monday’s there

Ask Your 'Tekkies' For Pitches

Speaking with a chap selling big ticket printing presses called Graham, I picked up a useful insight from him about intel he uses to throw into general “chit-chat” with prospects. With a portfolio in his bag including items costing well over a million, most potential buyers are aware they’ll

Incentive Effectiveness Example

What a terrific example of how incetives can work wonders. My great mate in Cape Town, Henry, runs an accounting Practice. With a government-imposed deadline on a particular filing requirement of 31 August looming, he realised normal productivity would not clear the inevitable backlog the authorities arbitrarily dreamed up. He