quirky

It’s incredible how many sales tips I pick up from people on Newsnight.  I am one of the almost two million Brits that apparently hold this single beacon of quality news analysis (as opposed to the diet of rubbish served by the rolling news obsession, this century’s new

London’s Daily Telegraph stole an incredible march on its rivals by publishing the expense claims [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/] of UK MPs.  Whatever your moral or political stance on whether the elected representatives are underpaid and overworked or cosseted fraudsters, you cannot deny that three

How desperate for you is your prospect?  It’s an interesting question because the more they need what you offer, the swifter you should be able to close and, even better, the less you will be required to discount which, in these credit crunch recession times, could define your year.

When men get together here’s proof that it’s not just sport, the battle of the sexes and general nonsense that we discuss.  My friend Murray and I were reminding ourselves that our heydays of cuemanship were well behind us when, upon my missing an easy straight pot, I

In a recent clearout of ancient files, I could hardly believe my eyes that I still had a couple of mags someone had given me from 1993.  Such hoarding would normally be inexcusable, but on this occasion they were part of a box crammed with sales advice I collected from

Picture the scene.  You’re in an internal sales team meeting and people are moaning.  Product, marketplace, environment, marketing, competition, support, pricing, production, commissions.  Take your pick.  You know you shouldn’t get involved, but the herd mentality kicks in and the downward spiral destructively crashes ever deeper. I recall

And another sales tip from Newsnight (!) this time from a fella that worked inside Number Ten under Blair.  He made the interesting disclosure that on the wall of the Cabinet Office was emblazoned the quotation: “Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”  This apparently comes from the Gilbert & Sullivan opera