quirky

Here’s a wonderful idea with two strands of sales insight. It comes from the Blackberry device makers, Research In Motion (RIM). The story starts shortly after their 1997 IPO. As the stirrings of dotcom mania raced towards a maddening burst bubble, RIM’s co-founders, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis,

Here’s something extremely useful I picked up from an old HBR [http://hbr.org/2010/01/the-hbr-list-breakthrough-ideas-for-2010/ar/1]. Each year it seems they suggest ten breakthrough ideas for the coming twelve months. Last year’s first was a belter. What really motivates workers – understanding the value of progress

Journalists, always high on the list of the general public’s most hated professions, have become less unpopular since the emergence of bankers in the public consciousness. I heard a pair of them the other day discussing the appearance in articles of onlookers. Apparently, whenever you read the phrase “…an

I recently read a tale of management lessons learned by someone in the blogosphere. One of them was a cracker. If you’ve just taken over a salesteam or are shaping one, then here’s a tactic that may just dispel damaging antagonism. The story went that our hero was

I was talking the other day with the head of an Account Management unit. He explained the difficulties thrown up by having to handle the inevitable glitches of service delivery that crop up whilst you are trying to sell the next deal in. As can often be the bizarre way,

What is the one part of selling that most sets apart management from reps? It’s got to be cold calling. You can run deeper than this too. Think less of call centre style measurement of how much time is spent on outgoing dials, rather being forced to pick out

There are all sorts of synonyms for cold calling. Appointment making, canvassing, prospecting, smoke-stacking. There’s just four. The understanding though, is universal. Your approach is unsolicited, unexpected and probably unwelcome. Like many a pseudonym, alternate names are meant to make a dish more palatable. They are euphemisms. Cold calling

I got asked for opinions on prospecting rewards the other day. I have plenty. In the 90s, I once awarded prizes among my salespeople on such mandated telesales days. Most bookings gets a gleaming pressie. Simple, right? The background was that for a while I sought to fill our collective

Sales force dot com. They had a chance to break the mould, yet are they simply same old same old? I was privy to a big pitch they delivered recently. Their area head honcho revelled in his spiel. One question came from the floor that each attendee seemed to remember