The Sales Head Office; Selling and Sales Management

A Sales Blog

Bill Porter – Door To Door

Bill Porter is likely the most intriguing sales person you’ve never heard of. Bill Porter started with the Watkins Company in 1955 selling their products door to door. For those of you that haven’t heard of Watkins, they have been selling natural home and health care products since the late 1800′s. Their roots are as [...]

Prospecting and Follow Up

My current team is generating excellent prospecting activity. They are willing to hit the street every day and meet with business owners to uncover opportunities.

The biggest challenge my team is having is managing follow up; more accurately ensuring that follow up is taking place in a timely fashion

2 Left 2 Right Prospecting

Sales Resume Tips

I am in the process of hiring 4 more sales people for a new market we are entering in Western Canada. Our organization is in growth mode (good) and we do not have the resources to have HR pre-screen candidates (bad). This puts me in a position where I am responsible for the full hiring process – from reviewing incoming applications right through to the eventual offer. I currently manage 12 sales people so I have to make sure that the time I dedicate to recruiting is efficient. Each resume I look at gets a 60 second run through. If it catches my attention I’ll spend a few minutes with it and if the candidate looks promising I’ll fire off an email to book a telephone interview. Below are some sales resume tips for sales people that are looking to make a career change: Make it personal. Your cover letter should show that you have put at least a little effort into applying for this position. Spend some time with the job description and write a brief cover letter that... more

Sales Books

Posted by <ADMINNICENAME> On March - 5 - 20091 COMMENT

Here is a short list of some books I’ve found useful and recommended to my sales teams: From Vendor to Business Resource, Jerry Stapleton Raving Fans, Ken Blanchard Spin Selling, Neil Rackham Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive, Harvey McKay Who Moved My Cheese, Spencer Johnson Customers For Life, Carl Sewell Question Based Selling, Thomas Freese Now Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton Leverage Your Best, Ditch The Rest, Scott Blanchard The New Strategic... more

Sales Management

2 Left 2 Right Prospecting

Posted by <ADMINNICENAME> On March - 2 - 2009ADD COMMENTS

2 Right 2 Left Prospecting If you are doing business in an area of town, an office building or an industrial complex, you should always take 10 minutes and visit each 2 companies to the left and right of the company you are there to see. If you keep some information packages in your car, you will have everything you need, to walk in and have a very brief, informal meeting with the companies around your customers. Don’t be afraid to tell them why you are in the area – visiting current... more

Prospecting

3 Wide 3 Deep

Posted by <ADMINNICENAME> On February - 16 - 20094 COMMENTS

3 Wide 3 Deep Expand Your Knowledge and Sphere of Influence With any account or prospect there is almost always more than one point of contact that you can be working with. The goal of this program is to find as many of these people as possible to increase your penetration and ownership of the account. By focusing your efforts on expanding relationships to 3 different departments and speak to at lest 3 people in each of the business areas, you have a much better chance and maximizing the potential... more

Prospecting

On Demand CRM

Posted by <ADMINNICENAME> On February - 9 - 2009ADD COMMENTS

My company uses Salesforce.com as our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. I was going to write a positive review on my experience with salesforce.com, however Sf.com does a much better job of showcasing their product. Instead of an article, here is a link that contains analyst CRM reviews, CRM white papers and CRM case studies: http://www.salesforce.com/products/analyst_research.jsp I haven’t used Siebel’s on demand CRM but here is a link to their site: http://www.crmondemand.com/ If... more

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)