quirky

Political phrase de jour, nudge policies, took up residence in this week’s chattering class tv.  The theory is that (by implication, centre-left) governments have for years wasted their time telling people what to do.  Instead, they’re better nudging people in the required direction.  A recent success along such

Thought-provoking positioning realities hit me whilst watching Jeff Randall on Sky News Monday night.  Although his forte is the written word rather than interviews, he did arrive at one spell-binding observation on British retailing 2008. As consumers begin to listen to the self-fulfilling misery from financial banking-biased journos talking us

A friend of mine is currently studying for a distance learning style degree around business finance.  She was getting the evident irritation with having to do a computer module off her chest, when during her explanation of computer crime categories, the salami technique was mentioned. This is where small amounts

Blogging the other day on experiences with credit crunch [http://salespodder.com/credit-crunch-focus/] thinking, I went on to explain what this means in the context of our sales plans with guys in one of my offices. We discussed why business people would buy something.  The idea was to create a

Something so simple I cannot believe it didn’t occur to me before.  In my current cold-calling crusade almost 25% of my sample’s receptionists wouldn’t pass on their firm’s ‘head of sales’ name, claiming some ridiculous policy or other. In England, such people are usually referred to

So last week I sent 14 emails to firms (suspects) where their receptionist told me they had a ‘no names policy’.  My email was sent either to a specified address given to me by said first-line answerer, or one I had to get off their website.  Typically, these addresses start

I’ve been back in the saddle reminding myself of the very beginnings of the sales process.  My intention is to secure a customer for a recent product addition from a totally cold start.  To this end, I accessed a listing of firms from the ‘software and services’ sector.  The

A pal of mine sent me a link to suggest that the choice of Boardroom nibbles can make or break a deal.  To get ahead, simply have a plate of chocolate covered digestives [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7432092.stm] on hand.  If you’re selling, then

I met up with a pal of mine for a couple of cheekies in a new Soho juicer the other night.  Inevitably, as it was a school-night, we spent a few moments banishing the evils of the day.  We soon discovered that we were both exhibiting an alarming tendency to