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grapevine

A collection of 657 issues

The Sundown Rule

Introduced ourselves to a new manager at one of my customers today. He’d served food/drink retailers all his lengthy career by the sounds of it. Having recently joined his new employers (supplying drink dispense kit to restaurants/bars) he ran me through a presentation just delivered on his

Optimum Length of Tenure?

Had a thoroughly enjoyable catch-up with an old pal of mine called Anthony (wierdly Tony to his other friends!) visiting London that currently works on retail merchandising in Kuwait. Apart from insisting we had to go for a meal featuring pork (absent from Kuwaiti shelves for the usually irrational religious

Sniff Out Destructive Double-Booking

Heard about some dubious practice that’d gone on in car parts wholesale that made me chuckle and gasp at the same time. It goes without saying that if such shenanigans can go on in your place, close the loophole…. Re-Booking Tactic One: Inside a branch, one fella was renowned

Avoid Golden Envelope Cultures

I was let in on the privilege that Golden Envelope Cultures do not work. This means environments where to keep valued employees, you give them more money every time they voice ambitions to move on. The wholesale/distribution guys I met that told me this took over two years to

Given The Game Away?

Met a decent chap this morning running a funky scene-setting business through lighting controls. Turned out they’ve only really one salesguy on the road, so not really a prospect for us (I’ve given the appointment-arranger suitable lashings whilst repeating the word ‘qualification’ in latin). He did recount one

Lessons from Stockbroker Scams

Waiting around for the Arsenal Man U showdown this Sunday, I skimmed the Sunday Telegraph’s Business section. Apparently, some shady cold-call operations are netting an obscene £600k a month conning unsuspecting gold-diggers. The scams come in various guises, including: * selling ficticious shares, even creating fake corporate websites to back-up

Another cold call approach

Searching for an evolution of a pitch for one of my products, I surfed the web to see how people may pitch something that’s brand spanking new. In doing so, I came across a small biz university site, and their advice on how to make a cold call [http:

Overcoming Reticence Bizarrerie

Here’s an interesting angle for getting your foot in the door. I met a decent chap at a prospect, called Stuart Berkeley who shared some happily experienced views of selling. We got to talking about how lazy buyers can be. Surely when your job depends on showing you’re

Robinson Sells The NHS

The Beeb’s approach over the past decade to pop-business shows is laudable. The only series I can recall being a dud was the Adrian Chiles pathetic ‘what do you do all day?’ nonsense. The rest all pursue a Radio4, Broadsheet type agenda, yet put across in plain English, and

Mercy Killings Early Doors

How soon into a new salesperson’s time do you terminate their contract on the basis of a lack of performance? Well, here’s a story to send shudders down any recruiters spine. It’s set just now in Jo’Burg. And as the world knows and connives, ‘affirmative action’