Nov
30
As salespeople, and especially as managers, we tend to ask the wrong question. We ask, ‘What do we need to do to close this deal?’ Unfortunately, that’s not the right question because we could do three dozen different things and still not get the deal done. What we should be asking is, ‘What does the [...]
Nov
29
Unfortunately, not all companies that do take the time to observe, document, and develop a unified sales process see the results they expect, or that they would like. There may be several reasons for this:
Lack of support from sales management-who don’t promote and reinforce its use
Resistance from the sales team-who perceive it as a [...]
Nov
28
Anything that we do over and over again can be made more efficient and more effective by developing and utilizing a standard process. It doesn’t have to be complicated; it can be as simple as a series of steps and stages we usually work through to ensure that the outcome is as consistent, and as [...]
Nov
27
Despite all the lip service that has been paid to it, sales is the one area of business activity that has benefited the least from the application of process and process reengineering. While other departments, such as manufacturing and accounting, have been overhauled with Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, and a host of other [...]
Nov
26
By 1998, a gimlet-eyed observer would have noticed that there was something rather … well … odd about the “high technology” boom sweeping the nation. The problem was that if you looked closely, there was precious little that was high tech about it. What, exactly, was so new millennium about selling books, furniture, food, wine, [...]
Nov
22
When the Internet exploded on the public consciousness in 1994, one of the reasons for the early excitement was that it seemed so fresh and new. This freshness was, as much else about the Internet proved to be, illusory. The Internet was a child of the 1960s finally all grown up, and it was about [...]
Nov
21
If you like to go horror movies, you know the cast usually sports a character you’ve come to think of as The Idiot Who Deserves to Die. He’s the knucklehead who runs screaming into the path of Godzilla just as the giant reptile is heading out to spend a relaxing afternoon destroying Tokyo, and gets [...]
Nov
21
The public’s affection for Bill Gates isn’t an accident. It’s the result of a long-term and brilliantly crafted PR effort that has paid off enormous dividends over the years. This effort was begun in the early 1980s by PR specialist Pam Edstrom, and since then Microsoft has spent years crafting Bill Gates’s public image and [...]
Nov
21
The high-tech industry has never grasped the dichotomy that exists between its vision of Microsoft and the public’s. To industry insiders, Microsoft and Bill Gates are tough, ruthless, and predatory foes. To the public, they’re something else entirely. This difference in perception is no accident. It’s the result of almost 20 years of an unrelenting [...]
Nov
20
The preceding two problems led to the development of a third: Novell’s continuing inability to execute product-marketing fundamentals. Positioning and product naming seemed to be Novell’s particular bêtes noires. In March 1993, with the introduction of NetWare 4.11, Novell decided to change the name of NetWare to “intraNetWare” in a clumsy attempt to take advantage [...]