Now see you thought I was full of it on the refridge thing

From this years builders show

"The latest version of the refrigerator, model RF4289, on display at the International Builders' Show, could attract even more consumers thanks to a nifty Wi-Fi enabled 8-inch LCD screen. Integrated into the front door just above the water and ice dispenser, the screen provides access to a range of helpful apps, including Epicurious (for recipes), WeatherBug (to check the forecast), AP news (for headlines), and Google Calendar (for family coordinating)."

OK not quite it, but it will run apps!

I was "Allowed"

To do the grocery shopping again! I even used coupons. Jenifer disagrees that I am faster at shopping than she is. I am timing it next time to prove my point.

Today, I was talking to Tammy and she showed me an app that gives you digital coupons. I need to figure that out. A way for me to eliminate more paper. What a great idea! (And I have converted another person to digital!)

I will let you know how that goes (If I am allowed to ever do the grocery shopping again, I made 3 errors)

The Apps

So I was talking to some fellow iPad users and I think we are all overwhelmed with the number of apps available. After thinking it over I decided one of the best places to put some of my favorite apps would be on the blog. So, here it goes;

In no particular order here are some of my favorite.

CNBC iPad app. You can get stock news, program it with some stocks you want to watch and your portfolio. In addition to this, it has breaking news alerts and more.

CNN. Better on the news side, has video and is really easy to use.

Weather hd. All the weather maps you could ever use, 10 day forcast, alerts and more.

Mobilenoter. I am an avid user of Microsoft OneNote and this syncs all my notes between the devices!

And a couple of entertainment ones; Netflix and Sling box app. Great for movies and local TV.

Just a start, I will keep adding more.

Will you listen to me please?

I think that most customers wish sales (And technical for that matter) wishes we would listen to them. In my previous post, I spoke about questions. One key tatict is SILENCE. The purposefull silence is very effective.

How many times do you find yourself calculating what you are going to say, what problem you are going to fix or how you are going to defend yourself? You do not have to always have the answer. It is honest! Go find the answer later. Key right now is to hear what the customer is saying to you. Not just the sales opportunities. Maybe you have the chance to be the connector?

This silence tatict is also effective in daily interactions with people. You will be amazed what you will get people to say.

Tammy (Link to her blog on the side)has huge problems with the silence. I would go as far as to say it might be her kryptonite! Try it, you may like it.

Questions

I was talking with a business owner that came from the technical side of the IT business and one of the things that he was struggling with was sales (Big surprise) and he, of course had the standard vision of sales. Once we got past the thought that sales was negative and rather about helping the customer. We moved to questions.

A particular thing that seemed to come to the top was that many times in the IT industry we get calls like I have Pop ups or a Virus. Immediately we begin to diagnose the problem. Many times we need to ask open ended questions that are more broad to get to the real problem and really deliver great customer service.

Like as in our example we may ask what else is the customer having problems with. (You would be surprised the answers you may hear) Are there other PCs with the same issue? How is security handled at your business? What things would you like your IT to do that it currently does not?

Then, once you get the answers to these questions, do not deep dive until you get all of the possible opportunities addressed.

Key is that we are so trying to educate, diagnose, talk, show how smart we are, jump to conclusions that we miss most opportunities.

How many names can you have?

Account rep
Customer Advocate
Customer Representative
Account Manager
Territory Manager
Architectural Representative
Solutions Analyst
Results Specialist
Results Expert
Results Producer
Results Developer
Results Manager
Results Supervisor
Relationship Specialist
Consultant
Senior Consultant
Senior (Insert title)
Business Development Specialist
Regional Sales Manager
Acquisition Specialist
Sales Director
Director of ...
Chief opportunity Director
Relationship Manager
VP of Sales
Sales and Account Manager
Senior VP of Sales and Account Management
Education Sales
Sales Development Director


Just a short list. Really however they are all long title for Sales. Why hide this? We in the industry already have trust issues surrounding our career, then we come up with these titles to "Trick" us or other? Maybe we should all have titles of "Sales Person" Quick, honest and everyone understands what we are.


Sanitation engineer (Were you fooled?)