Having just flown back from Toronto where time differences, the lack of acceptable Internet speed and socialising with clients, strangers and new friends I thought it time to catch up on my neglected blog. It’s a bit like a passion for going to the gym… once you have it, you feel you are missing out if you don’t get your daily fix… and that’s what it feels like at the moment in relation to the blog. I have therefore done a quick scan of the oracles that I keep a beady eye on…

Mad Hatters and Rain Makers
Low and behold, during my search, I find that my position of eminence in the sales world has moved on to new level of accolade… Ian Brodie of Sales Excellence… that guru of the professional services business development world… has kindly described me as mad as a hatter! What brought my eyes to Ian’s post is that he has set up a Rainmaker Resources portal and I’ve been struggling with Rain Making for a number of months now… Rain Making in the sense of Ford Harding’s latest book… and struggling in the sense of finding it hard work to get through… and my latest attempt to finish the book was while sitting in the hotel bar in Toronto during an extremely heavy downpour… was it the book or a natural phenomenon?… any how review on Ford’s book coming soon.

Pure Genius
The segue to my next oracle comes from Ian… and although he reckons I’m as mad as a hatter, he does say that there may well be some genius floating around my ramblings as well… nice to be loved… anyhow… talking about being a genius… Jim Klein of… From the Heart Sales Training… fame has a great new post all about being a pure sales genius. He is giving you the opportunity to part with some cash to improve your sales IQ… and if that was not enough, if you do part with cash… then you will also receive $3,000 worth of extra goodies. You don’t need to be a genius to work out what a bargain that would be!

Raise your Glasses
Continuing the segue theme it seems that having splashed the cash through Jim’s recommendation and received the book and goodies you may still ask WIIFM… what’s in it for me… that’s you asking WIIFM, not me… and that’s exactly what Karl Goldfield, that sales training genius of the startup sales world has asked in his latest post… well the world was asked bust the coached answered… and I would advise you don a pair of sunglasses before attempting to read the post… Karl has a picture up on this post that shows his west coast credentials… far out man!

Reading Nesh’s stuff can become addictive
And the West Coast theme brings me on to Nesh Thompson’s latest post about overcoming addiction… in bad sales practices. Nesh is on a mission to improve sales performance and he gives some food for thought in not only how to give up smoking, but also how we can get past our own addiction of the status quo.

Are You too Busy?
I find the biggest indictment of the status quo is that everyone is always too busy to do something different. You can come on a great training course, but as soon as you walk about of the door and back to your job… busy takes over. Tim Rohrer the sales loudmouth – his words, not mine, has a great post up about this very topic… Busy, Busy, Busy.

When being Honest… is Stupid
Being busy, busy, busy may sound a bit stupid and that’s exactly what Skip Anderson the sales trainer thinks of people who want to be honest. He makes a great point in his latest post…. To Be Perfectly Stupid!… when he talks about the appropriateness of being honest… it’s a must read!

When feeling Stupid… is Honest
And being honest is what Tibor Shanto was doing when he posted his insightful article about Selling to Procurement. And if I’m being honest I would advise you to keep an eye on Tibor’s blog as he gives some great insights, but more importantly I reckon he is an expert on appointments and prospecting… and I know this after having the pleasure of meeting him while I was in Toronto… we had a great evening discussing various aspects of our different businesses and I was left in no doubt that Tibor has what it takes for prospecting and getting appointments… a skill that will become even more prevalent as the bear bites deeper… and what I know about this subject is comparison to Tibor… makes me feel stupid… and so I’ll be reading and learning.

Finger on the Trigger
And talking about prospecting and getting appointments… Craig Elias the master of trigger events… has another great post up reminding us how to get more appointments and shortening the sales cycle by capitalizing on… would you believe… trigger events.

Enjoy!
And my final roundup of the blog world ended up on Brad Trnavsky’s Sales Management 2.0 site dedicated to the art of sales management and a forum for like minded people. He has some good guest bloggers sharing their ideas.

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Call me old fashioned, but back in the year 2002 when I first started having our Sales Pipeline Methodology developed into a piece of software I was adamant that the application had to reside on the sales professional’s laptop. They had to be in control of their own data… this was not a corporate system that anyone can see what they are doing… this was a personal tool… and the sales professional would choose what they wanted others to see… they could sandbag if that’s what they wanted to do. Focus was to replace the personal spreadsheets, not the corporate CRM system.

However, even back then I was being advised by some of the team to consider having the application web based… how crazy were those guys… running an application like Focus on the web!!! It would never work… it would probably have been difficult in 2002 to have the app that I wanted… to look good, to drag and drop, dynamic refresh, to have pop-up windows, to be fast… etc, etc… but now it would be easy.

Now everyone is developing for the web… there’s an avalanche of new sites coming out all the time… and I know of one sterling sales enthusiast who is right on top form when finding these sites… my friend Karl Goldfield… the startup sales mentor has just written about one such site – Web2.0 and Sales 2.0 – Salesconx wants to help small businesses and startups.

With this avalanche of Web2.0 applications that are available I’m not saying that I made the wrong decision back in 2002 because we have a great application and Focus – to coin a phrase – does exactly what it says on the tin… which has to be good… but hindsight is a wonderful thing and as none of us are blessed with it the best piece of advice I have found in lieu of hindsight can be found in another friend’s blog… Skip Anderson’s latest post… it’s not too long, so you should be able to weed our the message from the padding!

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I believe in credit where credit is due, although in this current economic climate there is a shortage of a certain type of credit, but luckily it’s not the financial stuff I’m talking about… it’s the recognition stuff.

However, before I move on to the credits… which custom has it says they are often found at the end anyway… and seeing as I’m a follower of custom… I first wish to share a thought…

For many years I have been proffering a really good piece of advice for anyone running a company who is struggling to deal with the numerous issues that such activity entails… get rid of all your customers and all your staff… and you will find life will be a whole lot quieter!

Yep, good advice, but flawed if you want to run a successful company… and so, love them or hate them… a successful company needs both good customers and good staff… nothing new there then.

Now, if you want a really successful company then the most important people to hire are really good sales people, again, not new to those in sales. However, it can be disastrous, financially, if the wrong people are hired… and I’ve seen many disasters in my time. So rather than have no sales people, hire the best. Easier said then done. Which is why I was pleased to read Ian Brodie’s latest blog post recommending… Topgrading for Sales… in which he recommends the book of the same name… which is focused on hiring and coaching to ensure you have only the best sales talent in your organisation.

Equally, Craig Elias in his latest blog post – no-charge company data - recommends JigSaw. Craig’s site is all about Trigger Events… identifying when to talk to customers… and JigSaw helps you identify which buyers to talk to… which means customers!

And so the credits… thanks to Ian for Craig for finding and sharing two excellent resources for helping negate my ‘really good piece of advice’.

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