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quirky

ideas and experiences with a selling angle that come from left-field

Average Number Of Questions

I heard an ad on the radio. South African insurance firm Santam included this intriguing line in their 30-second slot. the average number of questions someone asks when buying a car is eleven Then a day or two later, I heard another. In what was clearly a series. All aimed

Salesman's Favourite Colour

Way back in the 90s, I remember supping a couple of cheekies after work one day with a group of my fellow sellers. We happened upon declaring that every salesman had the same favourite colour; red. As a result, because we were selling to salespeople, we made our then corporate

Special Advisors

The liberal lefty English media have got themselves into a right tizz over Murdoch bashing. The latest Leveson Inquiry “revelations” are conversations betweeen “government” and “Murdoch”, captured quite bizarrely (and allegedly with embellishment) by internal News International emails. Too much? The lawyer, Mark Lewis, representing several phone hack victims, even

Rhetological Fallacies

[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/] As you may know, I’m a big fan of the infographics movement. There isn’t a solution sales campaign that cannot be distinguished by use of their approach. Top of the tree is David McCandless. One of his recent posts attempted to draw

Performance Flows When Relaxed

Here’s a weekend steer I got from reading [http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/mar/23/behind-the-music-singer-sound-great] about two outrageously successfully pop music producers, Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson. > [Horn] says he’s a great believer in not crowding musicians or jumping on them too quickly

What Do You Do?

Derren Brown. What a nutter. What a genius. I read a review of his latest live show, striking audiences down called Svengali. It seems that in his most recent book one of the things he riffs on is how incredibly dull is the question ‘what do you do?’.He suggests

Star Interview Method

I recently came across a technique for answering tough interview questions, known as The STAR Method. It comes from the initials of its components; > Situation Task (or Target) Action Result It naturally occurred to me that this is also a useful guide to delivering proof. Showing how wonderfully your

Be Like Messi And Meryl

How can you tell when a salesguy is really motoring? Going the right way? A chat I had recently with someone about their 15-strong enterprise team caught us discussing how much practice a salesperson puts in. The problem many reps have is the perception they give that they think they

Creativity Comes From Plagiarism

I do like to think about innovation. Especially how it comes about. So when someone was talking to me about a post [http://salespodder.com/listen-to-great-music/] I made the other day on the subject, I loved more examples he gave me on the ‘eureka’ process. They came from the 2009

Bounce Rate

I learned of this fruity phrase reading about someone with an impenetrable job title at Google; Uber Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness. Incredible. His bounce rate [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228400.400-google-usability-chief-ideas-have-to-be-discoverable.html] refers to how many people leave a page within five seconds of arrival.