quirky

Two valuable learning experiences I gained in the mid-90s alerted me to the over-formality of sales letter writing. The first involved a sales manager of mine commenting that I was too structured at the beginning of a letter. Saying things that didn’t need saying. As a result, I altered

A customer of mine’s just distributed one of their smaller, niche competitor’s price list around their sales team.  The guy who obtained it got all excited and thought it’d help them beat up the young whipper-snappers more. I’ve never been able to see this.  These people

You ask any CEO, and they’ll tell you the vast majority of reps are lazy.  There are all sorts of historical reasons for this.  I, for my part, know that most reps are indeed lazy.  They tend by their very nature to seek out short-cuts, follow the quickest paths

Suffered a disappointing experience with one of my own customers this morning, especially galling as I’d given them a bit of reciprocal trading.  I arrived at one of their facilities (where they were unaware I was both supplier and customer) and all started well.  Then during my transaction I

I’ve needed to get some repro work for a couple of weeks now.  I’ve put off sorting it out, as it’s not the most glamourous of things on my todo list let’s face it. I fired off a couple of emails to the leading guys my

Here’s a quick excerpt from a study published in the Harvard Business Review (the undisputed Daddy of management journals) about what ‘buyers’ think reps’ biggest mistakes are – the pleasing headline is that having too high a price is the very bottom, just 2% worth! % 26 not following company buying

Watching my fave Newsnight show last night I was reminded of once getting quite frustrated with one particular prospect. They were putting plans in place that should have included my then peddled service, yet tried to cobble together a solution, mistakenly thinking they could do what I offered themselves.  This