quirky

I took time out from my normal day-job for a meeting on a fresh endeavour yesterday.  It was a strange forum in the sense that depending on what transpired, I was potentially both selling and buying. I hadn’t convened the meeting, so I didn’t “own” it, but I

Rocked up for a meeting with a first-time prospect, only to be ridiculed for wearing a flasher-mac.  And I was sure it was trendy.  Thankfully, whilst our fashion sense differed, our sales-sense converged.  One key area we discussed featured objection handling. The frustration with reps not self-analysing enough cropped up.

I received a robust reminder of reality yesterday when I was trounced by someone.  I’m currently running a beauty parade of suppliers for an aspect of a fresh endeavour.  I want to deploy that best-practice procurement irritant of getting down to a shortlist of two.  Achieving this means contacting

I caught a snatch of a female-orientated glossy with thumbnails of clothes designers depicting their routes to success.  Being a rep you’ll understand, I was reading it upside-down, as a woman in a cafe sitting opposite me tucked in.  One quoted a former fashion-maker, Jean Muir, as providing a

I sent a brilliant email earlier this morning.  I’m sure you know the kind.  You spend a good few minutes planning it in your head.  Then fire up the word processor.  Re-editing makes sure your killer points are to the fore.  Headings are added and emboldened, bullets introduced, italics

A customer of mine had a right old rant, going off on one when speaking with me late last week.  He runs a sales effort.  In England, such people are called Sales Directors.  Elsewhere, titles may differ (VP Sales, CSOs) but the role remains the same. He was flummoxed.  Why

I tried to run a client jolly once.  As my customers have always tended to be sales people, I thought they’d really appreciate the TLC.  I myself have enjoyed these treats, especially geting to play the Belfry’s Brabazon course just before wallopping the Yanks in the Ryder Cup

A customer of mine shared some winning insight during a delightful half-hour chat late last night about how to avoid problems with seasonal downturns.  There is a month in the year during which none of his prospects ever find time to see him.  For ease of description, let’s call

There I was, dreaming of a glamorous sun-drenched life, having to wait around in London’s Waterloo station as a gale howled outside whilst my friend’s train was inevitably delayed by the NHS-proportioned inefficiency that is the UK’s rail network. A touch too early to adjourn to the

Relaxing last night, I watched a BBC4 half-hour history of the typewriter.  Now, I can imagine you reading that and wondering what on earth I might find stimulating in any way about such a topic.  Well, having learnt to touch-type (fairly slowly) when at college (a skill now dormant I