We know what it is about new parents that they feel the need to thrust their precious bundle of joy in your face for your mandatory “Ahh, isn’t she – or he – so cute.” Pride makes them do it, and generally we oblige because it’s polite and because that positive feedback has to carry them for a couple of decades of child rearing. But what about software vendors? If you feel compelled to show your software then it’s highly likely you have the “Show Up and Throw Up” syndrome...and you need to stop it!
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Last month I received an email from MYOB that rendered in Outlook as a series of grey boxes each containing the text :
"Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet. Can’t see the images in this email? Make sure your browser is set-up to view/download images.”
I suspect that it will be familiar to Outlook users – and other email system users as well – and it’s Number 1 on my list of email campaign naughty’s.
There is no doubt that technology is a big ticket item when it comes to enabling sales teams. From the early adoption of mobile phones and laptops, to sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA) software applications, sales teams are often at the forefront of systems and processes intended to eke every drop of profitability from prospects and customers.
However, because buying such technology represents a significant investment in both time and cash, it is imperative that you plan your purchase to ensure that your expensive tools are both appropriate for the task at hand and most importantly, adopted by the sales team.
I’m not a political commentator, but it seems to me that Kevin Rudd brought about his own demise because he failed not on the political front, but on the sales front.
Now I can well imagine a chorus of “What the...?” on reading that statement, because on the face of it selling does not appear to have much to do with running the country. Bur bear with me, because far from being an enigmatic opening line, my argument is that sales is so intrinsic to politics that our leaders ignore it at their peril.
If ever there was a cosy world where advertising drove the bulk of your B2B leads, it's definitely not the case today. Decision makers take information from wider sources, our attention span flits from place to place and DIY online content (and PVRs) mean that we can just skip the ads anyway. So what makes a good B2B lead generation campaign these days and how can you sort one from the other to maximise your marketing budget? Fortunately, it's all in the numbers and the even better news is that the numbers are not all that hard to calculate.
It's a tough decision to make, but firing non-performing sales people has to happen eventually. But before you let them go, make sure that it's them, not you. And it's for this reason that the Acceleral Framework™ focuses on People, Process and Pipeline as a whole. Often, poorly performing sales people are mired in a larger issue, that of the anti-sales company. In such a business, underachievement is the norm overall, not just for Sam in sales, who is sitting in the firing line.
The Acceleral website uses the Open Source Joomla! on an Open Source Linux server running Apache, so need I say more?
Well, yes, I do, because a website is often considered fluffy marketing stuff, Apache has a hint of respectability because it's free and seems to do a good job while Linux is really UNIX and has lurking been around the edges long enough that its credentials are firmly entrenched. So Open Source is OK for some HTML stuff, but what about real software...
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Monday, 01 November 2010 20:49 | Written by Michael Panosh | 
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