Topic

quirky

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

Distraction Recovery Time

[http://www.williampowers.com/] I caught a radio interview with an American chap called Bill Powers [http://williampowersbooks.com] the other day. He was moved to change his life when he identified the drain of the “vanishing family trick”. People that ought be really close fade away from each other

Just Ask One Question

I’d like to think it’s quite often an attractive lady approaches me in public and asks if I’m married. When this happened yesterday, sadly the woman in question was on duty selling skin care products in a shopping mall concourse. Moisturiser is not one of my priorities

Street Market Negotiation

[https://salespodder.com/content/images/wordpress/2012/01/penguin-and-lions-head.jpg] Greenmarket Sq, central Cape Town. Stalls set out with Africana bric-a-brac. A magnet for tourists. Much of it invokes memories of donkeys and sombreros for someone of my generation, via Seventies Spanish package holidays. Yet dig for it and you

Grading Opportunities

With the season of stuffing now past, I’ve read a slew of articles recently on the battles people have with over-indulgence. It is eye watering that one in four people in my homeland are currently considered obese. One such article quoted celebrity high-protein diet creator, Frenchman Pierre Dukan, as

Deeds Must Match Words

Over the festive season I had a traumatic experience at an eaterie. It was compounded by the fact that I regularly use the place. And now I will not. And I’ve told countless people to avoid them since too. They have lost crate loads of cash as a result.

Come Pitch With Me

[http://www.channel4.com/programmes/come-dine-with-me] Cook-off reality show Come Dine With Me is not only voyeuristically addictive, it also has the best voiceover on telly. With a flavour now available in just about every corner of the globe [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Dine_With_Me#International_versions]

Value Demand vs Failure Demand

Familiar with systems thinking? What’s the worse waste of a salesperson’s time? There are traditionally two sources of extreme wastefulness: Coming second on a deal. Post-sale customer service fire-fighting. They’ve been stand-out traumas for aeons. Nowadays a third nudges these. Latter-day technological capability has seen compiling irrelevant

Revealing Proust Questions

When sitting next to a salesperson when they meet their prospect, I’ve long since realised the value of keeping stumm. One rare exception to this policy is when you sense they’ve run off course. Specifically, when you hear a list of endless, machine gun fire, ‘situation’ questions. They’

Cavity Wall Grants

There I was, minding my own business in a quiet English suburb when the house I was visiting had a knock on the door. I heard a voice with a West African flavour introduce himself. > “Hello, I’m Lewis. I’m here to help you with your cavity wall

Raising The Deal Breaker

A pal of mine was renovating his house. I happened to pop ’round when he was trying to find a mini-skip. A quick websearch found several local suppliers. Three quotes later, one duly earned a call back to order. [http://www.selectaskip.co.uk/skip-hire] He spent a long time