Topic

quirky

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

The Trouble With Uni

Today the English Broadsheets all put their own spin on the latest data about university trends. Starting with ‘facts’, here’s the enrolment numbers for the top eleven subjects students elected to start reading this year: 84,715 Law 76,359 Psychology 69,952 Medicine 66,544 Design 59,895

The Care Scale Of Purchase Decisions

I’ve just happened across an economist’s (perhaps Milton Friedman) view of how people approach spending money. The three variables a salesperson should consider are: 1. who is doing the spending 2. who’s money is it, and 3. who are they spending it on So, the first scenario

Sweat The Asset

Last night’s pub conversation with pals, sitting outside in the rarity that was balmy England, kicked off with the latest UK recession figures. Due to a revision in assessment of Construction industry performance, it turns out we’ve been in the slump for an extra Quarter than we first

No Long Cons

The perpetrator of the biggest known Ponzi fraud (a bit like a pyramid scheme) Bernard Madoff, was sentenced to 150 years [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c4b9ec2-6496-11de-a13f-00144feabdc0.html] for crimes that were “extraordinarily evil” on 29 June. To mark the occasion, the Beeb asked the son of one

Add Emotion To The Facts

I caught a local radio interview with Sunday Times food and television critic, features and travel writer, AA Gill [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/a_a_gill/] whilst driving down the M40. A writer of much renown, he really came alive

Expose Bait and Switch

A major obstacle solution sellers face is not simply the cheaper quote, but one where a competing bid claims to offer exactly the same as you, but for way less money. In such cases, should you be able to justify that your price premium alone unlocks the unique capabilities essential

Recession Schmecession

At a recent out-of-hours event, the second slide one presenter showed betrayed his allegiance to the type of networking organisation only truly embraced inside America. He trumpeted their current slogan, that you can even buy on a dollar-a-throw pin badge [http://store.bni.com/p-202-i-refuse-to-participate-in-a-recession-button.aspx]; “I Refuse to Participate

Lessons Learned Exercises

The head of the army, Sir Richard Dannatt, announced his 3-year tenure will end in August. During the round of subsequent media appearances, I caught that he’d just “kicked off” a “lessons learned exercise” of the operation in southern Iraq. This begins now as one had already been done

Commitment Tax

A universal way to understand someone’s continuing commitment to you is to ask them for yet more money. Many companies try to tie-in customers (and lock-out competitors) by setting up programmes that add extra value, typically for a small ‘service’ charge for membership. The software trade somehow got away

Attention Scarcity

Here’s a thought-provoking concept I read from a Frenchman’s blog, Macro Principles [http://www.macroprinciples.com/2009/04/user-adoption-risks-are-growing-rapidly-for-it-projects/] , quoting Herbert Simon: > What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a