Friday, April 2, 2010

SWOT (On Delay)

On the way down to Hollywood Flordia to work with some Peer memebers. I have done this once before and found that during this process, I learn more about myself than I do the other business I am to visit. I want to thank Arlin for the opportunity to attend this.

The flights were about 1/2 an hour behind. Anyway, flew Delta which I rarly do. I happened to overhear two flight attendants while boarding talking about how the C level companies were not having to take cuts like they were and that the C level people were still driving Lexus's and living in their mansions. (A close quote) You have to hope that employees at your company (If) they were going to have this conversation would have it not during the time in which the maximum amount of people would hear them.

It is unfortunate that they made such a poor decision.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Back to the basics II

After qualification comes discovery. Depending on the situation this may be reversed with qualification.

Discovery is very important. It is key to understand the business reason for purchasing the solution. This is not speeds and feeds, rather providing a business need. IE email, remote access. More specific, the ability for users to be more productive. This is what you are really selling.


Using the discovery, you are tailoring a solution that meets the customers direct need. You are not providing some speeds and feeds doc. Rather a complete answer to the problem.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Back to the basics week

So remember that this is a sales and marketing blog. So I have decided to have a back to the basics week.

To start with, The qualification.

This is so important. It can reduce your work load and increase returns. In fact this can happen to the entire company. How is that you ask?

If you properly qualify...IE Who is the decision maker, what is the budget and what is the time frame. If all of these things are in tact, then you can move forward. Anyway, if you have these things, you are much more likely to close an opportunity than if these do not exist. Think of the work required to produce a proposal. That is to identify equipment, scope of work, maybe walkthroughs and such. This would reduce your workload and allow you to persue more likely opportunities.