quirky

Entertaining chat with a customer in the ‘report writing’ software space this morning.  Their main business development honcho was bemoaning how England was going down a useless voicemail culture route.  Apparently less people that lead sales teams are answering their phones in person lately, just like in America. He went

Flying back from an awesome trip to Copenhagen, my pal in the adjacent seat reminded me of the perils of setting a sales target.  With a downturn inevitable in his technology-driven partly American marketplace, it turned out that his success in hitting 207% of his (profits-related) sales target the previous

I’ve teenage excitement coarsing through me at present due to a new product I recently conjured up.  My initial market research with existing customers received plenty of encouragement and take up.  The product can give salespeople on the road anywhere between 2 and 3 days extra selling time each

I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before.  We’ve all heard of DM.  By whatever trendy sobriquet is popular at the time, communicating regularly with your customers is always a winner.  Yet how many of us as reps do this ourselves? I overheard an informal coffee

The weekend broadsheets no longer benefit from my patronage.  This is not because they post their articles online immediately, but rather that I prefer to follow more niche subjects in the precious time sitting down with all those column inches used to take up of my valuable weekend relaxation. So

The great Ken Welsh at one of my customers first brought this to my attention.  He sells print and document software solutions and actively encourages his reps to play the Green card.  Often firms will have some kind of statement about the environment on their website and in his case,

I remember early this decade sitting in a technology co’s Chief Exec’s office as his computer made the bleep that signifies a new email arrival every couple of minutes.  He got so irritated by it that he moved over to mute the sound with dark mutterings about how

An Aussie mate of mine decided to rub it in Friday by phoning me as he was about to step out onto a Myrtle Beach golf course.  I decided I might as well humour him, and as we talked he told me how everyone in America is running scared of

The permafrost that is blanket media coverage these days loves talking ourselves into wobbles.  This morning though, the English media were surprisingly reporting that the banks felt the worst was over for our current economic blip.  That hasn’t stopped lots of companies issues dictats that costs must be at