http://www.salespodder.com salespodder: sales blog with musings and tips from inside sales Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:56:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We've all been there.  You've a new idea that you're convinced your bosses will love.  A new product you know will change your customer's life.  Excitedly, you deliver an impassioned pitch.  Their response?  Yawns, at best.  Demoralisation crushes your pride.There are countless examples of world-beating pitches falling on a staggering ... http://www.salespodder.com/renewing-dampened-enthusiasm/ Listening to BBC Radio 4 most mornings recently, they've an innovative approach to consistent programming.  Eight o'clock, Business Editor Robert Peston talks you through constructing your own gallows.  Quarter-past eight, a pair of luminaries recommend their take on which rope makes the sturdiest knot and how to tie the ... http://www.salespodder.com/15-credit-crunch-impact/ I read my latest Selling Power newsletter on crm last night.  They mentioned a piece of PR they'd received from the boss of a crm vendor.  It was satisfying that they disagreed with a third of what he set out in order to raise adoption of crm systems.Back in ... http://www.salespodder.com/giving-up-on-crm-adoption/ We appear to have bumbled into credit crunch followed by financial meltdown.  The left-of-centre governments of Clinton and Blair over a decade ago, to little Opposition, led the encouragement of lenders to allow people to borrow mountainous sums, with little recourse to whether the interest payments could be maintained, let alone the principal ... http://www.salespodder.com/post-neo-classical-pitching/ I think every salesperson goes through this rite of passage.  You're told that you are going to win a deal by the prospect.  You proudly, maybe even smugly, pass on the good news to your boss, your peers, your support staff, your spouse, your pet.  Then what?  Jupiter mis-aligns ... http://www.salespodder.com/by-how-much-are-buyers-liars/ Here's a quote I read whilst surfing in front of the telly waiting for the Champions League game to start.  It's from a woman that married a man 11-years her senior with an insufferable reputation for social ineptitude.  And then had four children with him over the next six ... http://www.salespodder.com/fearlessness-and-lack-of-vanity/ A pal of mine used to be a buyer (I know, how could I...) and I was asking him his thoughts on what people might think in terms of a buying process for a product of mine. As we chatted, he revealed his pet hate with reps.  He'd often need ... http://www.salespodder.com/purchasing-manager-frustration/ Over lunchtime earlier today I caught itinerant self-publicist and seemingly self-styled 'entrepreneur's entrepreneur', Richard Branson, plugging his latest book on a radio show.  And in these selling-squeeze times, I was reminded of a wonderful piece of advice I was given at the start of my sales career (when my elders ... http://www.salespodder.com/the-downside-torpedo/ I suspect that virtually all of us are experiencing that the credit crunch is biting.  I had a couple of cheekies after stumps with a pal of mine Thursday night who's responsibilities include managing financial risk and reducing borrowing costs for one of the most well-known global luxury retail ... http://www.salespodder.com/thaw-spend-freeze/ A friend was telling me about his sales benchmarking sideline.  He offers clients a full competitive audit of their sales process, right through from initial enquiry to cancellation/returns.  He'd recently conducted some work in the vaguely entitled 'virtual assistant' space. 16 firms were contacted.  Just 5 emailed a response.  And only 1 ... http://www.salespodder.com/mystery-shopper-trap/