Topic

grapevine

A collection of 656 issues

Cross-Dressing Destruction

Had a cheeky drink the other night with a few boys from one of the world’s largest solution sell organisations (IBM no less), and heard an outrageous story about how one of their number once achieved promotion, a decade or so earlier at a previous, also large, firm. The

Enter The Dragon

From the start I’ve loved this show. For those not in the know, this isn’t a pop-ideas show like American Inventor, Dragons’ Den [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/] uses 5 self-made multi-zillionaires who are pitched business brainwaves with a view to getting them to commit a specific

Stability Indicators

I sense a current trend emerging for sales teams to pay lots of money to get their sellers to focus on what keeps a customer for as long a time as possible. I’ve come across two recent examples of this, one with a local English, the other a global,

Think Feel Know

It can be bizarre who you bump into when out reppin’. At a small packaging firm, couple of million turnover, the owner turned out to be a self-confessed ‘Life Coach’. He was into it so much, that he’d delegated his packaging responsibilites so was only now in one day

Price is No. 7

“They Can’t Afford It” Had a preliminary meet earlier today with a sales manager at a packaging solutions provider. Their issue as an industry is buyers that only want to decide on price, when all the added value services (design capability, lead time, out of hours delivery, business empathy)

Generating new opportunities differently

Two separate experiences of mine today converged to the same point in my mind. They both suggested that for sales success, you’ve often got to think of extra ideas, and see them through, to stay ahead of competitors, or even generate new opportunites in the first place. The first

Forecasting categories

it’s long been my opinion that over-complication of forecasts is a disease eating away at proper sales management, whether by a rep themselves, or managers sifting through reams of spreadsheets. A pal of mine, Brendan Gillies, a winner originally from Glasgow currently selling in LA, firmly believes there’s

Quick Question for 1 in 4 Response

Was with a guy today I’ve a lot of time for that has just become, after takeover fall-out, the Head of Sales for a £¼bn business. One of his new teams, is a brand new part of the structure. An idea transfered from his new American colleagues, it’s

Know Your Stats

I was reminded of something quite essential yesterday when meeting a potential new prospect for the first time. Although a difficult chap to generate any bonhomie and genuine rapport with, one insight he did offer was what he expects of his team. During the twelve years he’d worked in

Official cold call prep tips

While searching for help on the rather unappealing topic of statutory sick pay, I came across some sales tips from a general business advice website. I was pleasantly surprised to see a fairly common-sense and clearly knowing selection of planning advice. The part that particularly caught my eye were the