Topic

grapevine

A collection of 653 issues

Knowing Where To Hit

I just came across this story, used by ‘consultants’ to justify their prices, when such rates are seen as exorbitant by buyers and much coughing and spluttering ensues. You can dress this up in all sorts of ways to suit your trade, but in essence it goes something like this:

Adjacent Areas Won't Waste 3/4s of Your Effort

I travelled by train for a couple of hours the other day, and took with me one of those wildly expensive and often turgid Harvard Business Reviews. They also tend to be off-puttingly expensive for little return, so I was half-expecting to lose out on the deal. A couple of

How To Network Effectively

Sitting in a prospect reception earlier I thumbed through a broadsheet business section. It’s always struck me as strange that the “Qualities” do not leverage their journalism more. Articles in these sections are pretty much one of three types: fresh company news, economic comment/analysis, or general business-life advice.

Traffic Light Analogies

What a winner these are. I got reminded of them today when a prospect left me a message on my voice mail. Called Kevin, and MD of a £30m+ sales progressive lighting company, he mentioned he hoped to gain an “amber light” off his Chief Exec upon returning from America.

Wheel Of Influence

The best part of my day-job (after knowing someone’s buying from me to make their lot a happier one!) is that I get to speak to sales people about what they do and how they think. Wednesday saw an introduction to a Welshman called Martin, seeking how his ten-strong

Avoiding the “shout down the corridor”

Heard this wonderful expression from a seller inside a customer of mine that’d been there for 20+ years. The “shout down the corridor” is where you propose something, and you leave thinking the deal is as good as done. Afterwards, your contact asks their boss whether the money can

Know your "latch-lifters"

Here’s a wonderful gem unearthed when I spoke Wedensday with a fella that’d been selling for his present (multinational blue-chip) employers since 1969. Originally from Doncaster, he was dropped off in the middle of Edinburgh by his boss (from Leeds apparently) with a load of samples and told

Total Account Management

Anyone remember “TQM”? If you do, relax, Total Account Management in the terms I’ve recently discovered it has nothing to do with such early-90s Quality drives. ‘Phew’ I can hear you sigh. Steady on, though, as some TQM problem solving techniques are awesome and deserve a second-chance…..but I

CSI Selling Tip

I was forced to watch an episode of the American CSI output Sunday. It was the one set in Vegas. In days of yore I loved watching all those really intelligent ‘new breed’ of detecting shows. I refer to the ones that make the effort to go deeper, like Morse,

More Sales Reality TV

The doyen of business reality telly has got to be ex-ICI Chairman John Harvey-Jones, with his awesome Troubleshooter series throughout the early Nineties. Since then, several pop-tv shows have introduced helping businesses escape dire straits (like the aforementioned show), pitting contestants against one another for dream jobs, through to start-up