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grapevine

A collection of 657 issues

The Dignity Of Labour

Surprisingly not a reference to experimental Human League 1980ish singles pre-Dare, rather seeing how the libertarian inspiration of Charles Murray [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(author)] should enthuse sales people that don’t want to pick up the phone to take action. I saw an interview with former

Assessing Reps

Been dealing with a thoroughly engaging Scotsman recently that sells software all over Europe, Asia Minor and Africa. When I last met him, he was bemoaning the lack of an Angolan visa, thwarting some of his current ambitions. He gave me a fascinating insight into how his bosses tried to

Keep Demos Short

Over lunch I read an American article on presentation lessons for software demonstrators that could ‘have prospects buying without even asking the price’. Trying hard to contain my drooling, I did note there was one good point among the seven steps proposed. Apparently, prospects get overwhelmed with more than two

Follow The 70:30 Rule

A kind of semi-review this, as just before popping towards Covent Garden for drinks with some pals, I was rewarding myself for doing all the must-send mails by the end of the week by reading news items on the web. One of them lead me to http://www.quirkology.com/

The More You Give, The Higher You'll Get Dumped On

Looking forward to hopefully starting a project with an industrial parts distributor/manufacturer based in Sheffield, I met the top sales person Tuesday. One interesting topic was how to gain more share of each third-party distributor’s spend on their kinds of products. An instructive example was with one distributor

Help Buying Processes

Heading back to London on the train, read a fascinating architectural critic’s account of the March 2008 opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 in London’s Times newspaper. By his account, it’s set to be fabulous, on-time and on budget. Deep within the lengthy article were some wonderful comparisons

IBS Talking Points

The mention of IBS may send a teenager into fits of sniggers, but in the context of sales, I discovered the other day it can stand for Initial Benefit Statement. Hanging around in a conference room for a meeting to start, I couldn’t help but notice a few sheets

The Answer's in the Outlet

Met a thoroughly engaging chap today at what’s evolved from an office stationers to become a £200m powerhouse. He’d previously spent twelve years working for Coca-Cola in just about every sales role imaginable. We got to discussing what was best-practice for reps to tap into and he gave

We can WE do?

Enjoyable night out yesterday around London’s Shepherd’s Market (between Hyde Pk Corner & Green Pk tubes) with my pal, Richard. He works for a pub operator, being area manager for a few (usually trendy) juicers. He got to talking about his day, moaning he’d actually been required

Sales Meeting Speed Dating

One of my prospects enjoyed an annual sales kick-off in Thailand last week. All right for some. Determined not to be the usual powerpoint poisoned session, one of the four global sales managers took the reins and asked if he could run one of the slots. He announced to the