Recommendations
« Previous EntriesNew Report and Free Trial on RainToday
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008One of my favourite and most frequently visited sites is RainToday. It’s a fantastic source of articles, white-papers and research reports, webinars and premium content - all focused on marketing & selling professional services. It features some of the best writers and experts on professional service business development - from Bruce Marcus, Ford Harding and [...]
Getting Past First Base
Saturday, November 8th, 2008How do you turn an initial contact with a prospect into a fully-fledged business relationship? It’s the essence of sales - but it’s an area where many people really struggle.
Robert Middleton has an excellent analogy for this process which he calls “Marketing Ball”.
By the way, if you’re an independent professional (a consultant, coach, therapist, [...]
Google’s New Mail Goggles
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008OK, it may not be sales related - but this story on google’s gmail blog announcing a new feature amused me no end: Google’s Mail Goggles.
Basically, the gist of it is that if you send out a piece of email late at night via gmail, it gives you a little bit of a sobriety test [...]
More on Online Contact Management - BatchBook
Monday, October 6th, 2008In my previous post I pointed to Jan Visser’s SalesTeamTools site for a great overview of the best online Contact Management Systems.
Spurred on by my own recommendation I tried to find a system that met my own criteria:
Simple - just the basic features I need
Easy to use
Some form of compatibility with my iphone
After trying out [...]
Online CRM/Contact Management Reviews
Sunday, September 28th, 2008Jan Visser’s SalesTeamTools is a great site. Lot’s of useful articles, features and resources.
One area I’ve found very useful recently is the section reviewing and comparing online CRM/contact management tools.
If your contact/prospect list is longer than a handful of people, you really ought to be using something better than a spreadsheet or your normal emai [...]
Free Webinar Today (17th Sept) on the Real Silver Bullet in Sales: Timing
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008Over my (far too many) years in sales I’ve been inspired by many great teachers - from David Maister & Ford Harding in the world of Professional Services to Neil Rackham for major sales and Paul McCord for generating referrals.
One name I recently added to this list is Craig Elias. Craig is the creator of [...]
New Specialist Sales Blog - www.constructionsales.co.uk
Friday, September 12th, 2008For those of you in the construction industry, take a look over at the construction sales blog. There are also some very good hints and tips which apply to many other industries too.
Personally, I like the idea of specific niche blogs like this. It gives the authors a chance to really focus their posts and [...]
Interactive Document Creation: Papershow Trial
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008Over the last few weeks I’ve been trialling a product called the Papershow from Oxford (the chaps that make those nice Black & Red notebooks so beloved of we consultants).
The product is basically a fancy pen with clever paper and a USB key for your PC. When you write or draw on the paper, it [...]
Topgrading for Sales: A Review
Friday, July 18th, 2008The folks at the Topgrading team (http://www.topgradingforsales.com/) kindly sent me a review copy of their latest book: Topgrading for Sales – so here’s the review.
A quick caveat: Topgrading focuses primarily on recruitment – and I’m far from an expert in that area. In fact, in my 15+ years working in consulting organisations I managed to [...]
Back round the blogs…
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008My weekly look at sales blogs:
Colin Wilson is clearly mad. As a hatter. But they say the line between madness and genius is a fine one - and Colin seems to skip with abandon across that line. In amongst the ramblings on the Padstow Obby Oss festival and Robert de Boron’s octosyllabic verse you’ll find [...]
