First thing to do in the New Year – Make that difficult call

I was wondering what’s the most productive thing that you can do now that we’re back after the holidays. How about making that difficult call that you’ve been procrastinating about for a while? We all have customers or prospects who we’ve been trying to contact for a while, but perhaps we’re not too unhappy that [...]

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The Secret to Efficient Lead Generation

Guest Post by Pat Meehan of Leads360.com Investing in quality leads has long been one of the most important elements of any marketing buy and the key to successful sales. However, the decision on which leads to buy and how much to spend on them can be complicated and difficult. This is why a Lead [...]

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LinkedIn: Should you share your connections?

Recently I attended a local technology networking event. There seems to be about one a day here in Cambridge, but in general they’re pretty good and you get to meet some interesting people. This event was no exception and I left having had some useful chats and with a few business card in my pocket. [...]

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2010 Sales goals – Q1 Review

You will recall that in late 2009 we looked at how to set sales goals for 2010. Well it may have escaped your notice but it’s getting to the end of Q1, so how are you doing? With a week and a half to go, now is about the right time to start worrying if [...]

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Poacher turned gamekeeper – When someone wants to sell to you

One of the most interesting and entertaining experiences for sales people is when someone tries to sell to them. Common opinion is that sales people are easy to sell to because the sympathise with person selling to them. I’m not really sure whether this is the case, personally I quite like to torture the person [...]

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Some useful air travel tips

Over the last week or so I’ve come across some interesting articles and tips on air travel. Given the amount of time we sales people spend travelling I decided to pass them on. I hope you find them useful… Book Airline Flights Past Your Destination for Cheaper Fares Save Money by Shipping Your Luggage Dealing [...]

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A prospecting no no

It’s a amazing sometimes how you find new prospects. The other evening I was in the pub with some friends and introduced a new acquaintance, Bert, to an old friend of mine, Fred. After a minute chatting it turned out that the organisation Fred worked for was a prime prospect for the service that Bert was selling. [...]

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I hear you knocking…

I hear you knocking… Most sales trainers advise you not to knock the competition and in general that’s very wise advice. Early in my career I’m embarrassed to admit that I ignored it (as most inexperienced sales people do) and came a cropper. I was competing for a good size deal and from previous experience [...]

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It’ll be alright on the night… the art of the demo

It’ll be alright on the night… Being in tech sales has certain pluses and minuses. One of the pluses is that you get to see lots of cool technology before the guy on the street. One of the minuses is that you sometimes get to demo to state-of-the-art stuff before all of the wrinkles have [...]

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Minuting customer meetings

The great Sir Winston Churchill once said “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it”. He was true to his word, writing “The Second World War”, “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples” and winning the Nobel prize for literature in the process (as you do). [photo] Likewise for us the importance [...]

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