Topic

grapevine

A collection of 653 issues

Retail idiots in Cape Town

So there I was in Cape Town and my local mobile number from the MTN network decided not to work. Having been in this position before, I went into one of their kiosks and asked for it to be re-activated. Unlike on the previous occasion, I was given flannel about

Benioff Talks Futures

Salesforce.com have hauled their ‘roadshows’ around England featuring an “inspirational keynote” (their words) speech by their founder. In the mid-90s, I witnessed a similar event, with a multimedia presentation from Tom Siebel at a Chicago crm show, so I was expecting an experience a bit like reading a how-to

Don't Forget To Write Business

Way back in the early 90s, a fella who’d given me my first ever formal sales training session, Welsh wonder Wynn Rees, called me up once I’d started a new job searching for a lead. At the end of the conversation he made sure I didn’t lose

Asking For Ice Cream

It’s lamentably not too often I say something that I realise when I say it was actually fantastic and I must say again, but that happened Friday morning. In with a prospect who loved what we do, he mentioned his boss (the MD) didn’t have a roaring track

Note the 3 costs

A talking head from UK insurance giant Norwich Union (trying to rename itself Aviva at present) was on Channel4 News explaining why 4,000 jobs were being axed – despite making profits in the first half-year of a whopping £1.7bn. Apparently Indian call centres are the way forward because of

Sales Promotion Insanity

Met an interesting chap today called Nigel who ran a company with a highly lucrative future I’m sure. His main excitement (quite rightly) came from the ability to got people away from the “evil” of Outlook, and instead, actually be able to know what is in all their emails,

Seffers Shine

A winner of a guy I know, hailing originally from PE in South Africa has a happy sales history and, having started one new business of his own, yearns to do it again within the next three years. His current role sees him managing resellers for his London-based software products

eAuction Idiocy

Internet Auctions have been bubbling under for a few years, creeping towards ever-greater credibility, mainly due to incredible PR coups such as the European 3G mobile phone licences and their mega-billion windfalls. It has to be said that such affection can surely nowadays only exist for those that haven’t

What Makes A Good Sales Deal?

Going through the tedium of sorting out my business’s quarterly sales tax returns, before sending them off to the guys I outsource the collation too, is not an ideal way to spend probably the last sunny Saturday morning of the year in England. Normally I’d bang on some

Who can sell?

I crossed paths with a chap who’s company I enjoyed a few years back called Tom Hannon. He was the MD (having been promoted from Sales Director no less, that rare, but heartwarming scenario for us mere reps) of a large British-founded erp software vendor (the financials, order processing