SymVolli

Do you like getting wet, feeling cold? I expect the answer is NO. So you rely on the weather forecast to help you decide what to wear and whether to take an umbrella. In the main you know that the weather forecast is going to be reliable...

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Following on from Hugh Stafford-Smith’s article about People and Talent, I believe that the sales person is a very visible target and therefore in the absence of other information he is the first person to come under the microscope when things are not going according to the sales plan. I have...

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In the last newsletter we sent out to our subscribers we alluded to a number of announcements on some of the new elements and features that will be shipping with SymVolli 7.5 which will be released in January 2010. In the first announcement of our newest version of SymVolli...

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As we are tackling the business critical issue of sales performance improvement we need to develop our business partner channel based on people who have the expertise in this field and who are comfortable in dealing with senior management. Graham Whittle is a professional that has the experience both in...

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In a world of change, it may be forgiven for thinking that public sector and large corporate industry giants are organisations that frequently need catching up with the ever moving world that we live in. As agents of creating new and effective organisations, Cameron Consulting are at the forefront of...

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It is with great pleasure that I introduce this guest post from one of our associates Hugh Stafford-Smith a leading management consultant for SABA Consulting based in Guildford. In this post Hugh talks about business critical data which heavily ties in with what we believe in developing our sales performance...

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In difficult times the phrase ‘we’ve got to pull together’ is never more appropriate… not that I think there is a time when this phrase isn’t appropriate, but when companies all over the world are facing tough decisions - co-operation, collective enthusiasm, dedication, strategy, process, and will are integral to...

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Recently I was working on a project where the client concerned was in B2B high value sales. The discussion centered on certain opportunities that had stalled. There was no definitive answer. On further questioning it appeared that there was only one person in each of the opportunities...

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Last week we released a 'Sales Performance Management Crib Sheet' with 10 areas of sales performance that we think are important for sales people and managers to answer to keep an eye on the effectiveness of sales performance throughout the sales cycle. The 10 areas are by no means an...

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I already know that. You are a sales person. I am not interested in a presentation of your products and your services. Demonstrate that you have the credentials for me to listen to you. Do you know my industry and what it does? Do you know the challenges it is facing? Have you dealt with...

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A little over a year ago, I started doodling (though absolutely not in the middle of sales meetings… honest!). These doodles were varied in content from the surreal to those based on amusing real life situations in the sales world and so I thought of a web comic as a...

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'Mr customer, to get the most out of the system and to ensure that you cut down on the ramp up time and minimise any antipathy towards the system, training is essential' Where have you heard that before? Maybe if you are in the business of selling something such...

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It seems that all is not lost and there is a great debate occurring about sales forecasting accuracy that gives me hope that the status quo ‘sales forecasting inaccuracy has always been like that’ is not acceptable anymore. The tug of war is over the sales process. Two camps are claiming...

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It might seem that in a world of recession that business is slow. You might also get the impression that every business has battened down the hatches and are currently waiting for the media to tell us it’s OK to come out again. However, nothing is further from the truth....

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I have been a member of the IOD for a number of years now and have often found the help and support that underlies the philosophy behind the IOD as an institution a truly inspirational thing. It was this basis that I approached Chris Ragg, the Branch chairman of the...

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Following on from George’s post yesterday and the article that we released (which we have had a great response so far) I thought that I would add to the discussion on sales forecasting and my own view point on why some of the issues that George wrote 10 years ago...

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About ten years ago I wrote an article about Sales Forecasting in the business world and the trials and issues that companies at that point were facing in establishing accuracy, consistency and the role that the sales forecast should play in the running of a business. It was with great surprise...

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You set up a meeting with a prospect and have a great conversation with the Director of Sales, the meeting is positive and the Director asks you to send some documentation going into more detail over the points covered in the meeting. You get back to the office and strike...

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Being one for the occasional bouts of nostalgia I was at one point thinking back to my childhood and teenage years and evolution of the humble video game that I saw evolve from BASIC programming such as that on my first computer – the ever excellent Acorn Electron up to...

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Shortly we will be announcing the official press release of our OEM partnership with Orbis Software which has opened up many channels of opportunity for our clients in managing their performance by integrating it with the powerful capabilities that Orbis Software's TaskCentre gives. TaskCentre's powerful Business Process Management (BPM) capabilities...

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I am a huge fan of learning through different media. People learn in a variety of different methods and messages taught through one form can be reinforced through different forms so that lessons can be remembered. With technology seemingly growing at an exponential rate the delivery methods that we have...

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If you probably haven't already noticed, I have a penchant for historical stories and quotes. My initial foray into writing this post would have eulogised the oft quoted Sun Tzu who is attributed with the age old wisdom of 'knowing your enemy' and though the wisdom of this text is...

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Jack Welch once said that the greatest assets of any company are its people. I believe that this is only one part of company’s greatest assets - the other is its customers. Why do I believe that? Because satisfied customers will keep coming back to a tried and trusted supplier....

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In our concluding article in the ‘Sales Effectiveness’ series we discuss some important issues with regards to Business-to-Business account management and our ability to know our current client base. One of the nasty surprises that many companies are facing with regards to the effects that the recession is having on business...

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is, in my opinion, an often misunderstood theory which has led it in some quarters to be considered with scepticism by those who use it. In essence, too many B2B companies expect CRM systems to manage themselves and then complain that they don’t get any results....

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Following on from my discussion of social media tools like Twitter for B2B companies the most logical follow up post would be how to fully take advantage of Business to Business marketing effectively. Firstly, marketing in whatever business cannot be viewed in isolation. Marketing, sales, operations, customer service etc. are not...

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It seems that Twitter has over the past few months been adopted by the main stream as a networking system that everyone can use. Indeed, through celebrity and mainstream media adoption Twitter has seen a massive uptake in usage from a wide range of different types of users. But how...

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In the article Sales Effort: Are You Selling…Or They Buying? that we released last week there was a term than I used that caused a little controversy. In it, I said that The job of the sales person is to bring in sales and ensure that he has satisfied customers...

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Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by our ability to sell our products… that is what Shakespeare might have written if he was in marketing. Without dwelling too much on the ‘winter of discontent’ that the world is facing the unalienable truth that many sales people...

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If you aren’t already aware, I contribute to a group called the Sales Bloggers Union who are a collection of sales professionals around the world who collaborate to discuss and promote sales strategies, discussions and issues in sales. What I like about this group is that we are from different...

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The past few weeks have been a real focus on sales qualification with the last two sales performance podcasts focusing on discussing how qualification fits into company and individual sales processes as well as the article we released last week on spending time on sales opportunities. It was with this...

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Last week we released an article on sales qualification and how important it is, not only in categorising and filtering sales leads but in asking defining questions throughout the sales process so that measurements can be taken about where each opportunity is in relation to key objectives. In conjunction with the...

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Sales Qualification begins with the qualification of the lead. Lead qualification is so important because it helps sales people concentrate on the leads that are most likely to come to fruition. It doesn’t stop there. Sales qualification as we practice is the continual processing of new information to define where...

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In many market sectors the “numbers game” has been the defining factor in judging how successful a business is. Even recently if you listen to the news about companies that are going into administration more often than not their bad performance is summarised on like-for-like sales. “XYZ Ltd. Sales are...

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Happy new year everyone. I mean it. I know, there is much not to be happy about at the moment. Watching the news for any apparent period of time should come with a government health warning, five minutes of BBC News 24 will in all likelihood send you into a...

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Ok, first of all, apologies for the lack of content on the blog the past few weeks. In previous years the Christmas period has been a time of pre-hibernation activity as businesses prepare to close over the holiday period, contact between companies and clients have been one of mutual wind...

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This story was written when I first started the company in the mid 90’s by our PR consultant, John Lardge to mirror what was happening in the market. I kid you not, nothing has changed since it was written. The analogy still fits don't you think? Once upon a time, an...

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“With great power comes great responsibility” is a quote from a movie that in the context of business is more than apt. On reading Paul McCords blog article entitled “Management Spy or Sales Aid – What is your Client Management System Designed to Do?” I quickly resigned myself to reading...

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I am sure I am not the only one getting telephone calls offering pensions, hospitality packages, electricity, gas, and telecoms that the recent feel guilty if not stupid for not taking up the offer - pure confrontation. Now look at the news, most of it is about confrontation, one...

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Today is a historic moment as the world starts to comprehend the momentous decision that the American public have made in their presidential election. This blog has been purposefully devoid of politics for a number of reasons, ultimately because politics can be such an emotional subject that can potentially distract...

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As an introduction to Sales Benchmarking I found this an intriguing read that kept me captivated as if I was reading a novel and wanted to know the outcome. It did not let me down as the outcome was sales success stories of orgainsations that have implemented sales benchmarking. ...

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This morning at 8:30am I was called by someone, lets call him Matthew. He was calling on behalf of a very reputable, if not infamous, British telecoms company and asking if he could confirm our telephone number. I said that wasn’t a problem so he proceeded to read...

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Customers keep asking me to clarify what the difference between Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Sales Performance Management (SPM) systems is. It is difficult to explain it without making it sound like a thesis being developed at one of the business management colleges. Apart from the obvious retort that...

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This is a true story. A girl goes into a fashion salon. I am told this is one of the most respectable establishments in the city with only the best and most highly qualified beauty technicians employed. The salon is French and so employs only French hair dressers. Again, I am...

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They are pushy, they are ambitious and they think they can sell anything to anyone – whatever it takes, and whatever the cost. I’m not the greatest fan of reality television but I’ll admit that my heart sank beyond its usual depths while reading this initial description of ITV’s new reality...

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A funny thing happened on the way to a football match A rare midweek excursion ended up with me and the wife going out to eat in London before we went off to see a football match. Whilst sitting waiting for the main dish I could not help but overhear...

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I have been fortunate enough to have spoken to Craig Elias many times and can personally attest to the creativity that Craig, as a sales professional and entrepreneur, brings to the sales industry as a whole. For those who don’t know him, Craig is the creator of Trigger Event Selling...

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A company is going to implement a brand new CRM system into their work environment. The initial negotiations have been concluded and the value of the system has been recognised, the proof of concept has gone through without a hitch and even the finance director is on board. The IT...

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Michael Byrne’s blog post on Sales Management 2.0 highlighted an innovative way of implementing new technology and web 2.0 into the very culture of doing sales within the organisation itself. To summarise, Michael’s company facilitated a conference call system where sales representatives in a pharmaceutical company review their sales calls...

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A friend of mine told me a story about her adventures travelling in India. Stranded in an unfamiliar city she needed to find a bus that took her to her intended destination. Not being able to read the language or speak the local lingo she found what appeared to be...

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On reading Ian Brodie’s article last week concerning the need to develop relationships by finding common overlaps I was struck by something that Ian said. “Although it’s often said that you get 30 seconds to make a good impression - and that’s great advice for how we should present ourselves...

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I have been on holiday this past week in the epically historic city of Rome. Having managed to get a great deal of the sites covered from walking on the very roads of past emperors and visiting the famous Coliseum, I can’t help but admit that even though this was...

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Recruitment is not my speciality, but then recruitment isn’t the speciality of any sales professional or sales manager. Isn’t it? I thought that HR was meant to be in charge of recruiting, but then who am I to say, I only help in selling products and services, why should I...

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It may sound like a tagline from a movie…think Wall Street crossed with X-men, but a group of sales professionals have decided to unite together to form a super force of sales bloggers with the sole aim of improving sales for all. You can imagine the possible voice for such...

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I have been hearing good things about Alltop.com for sometime and some of the most experienced and well known professionals in all spheres of life are appearing in Alltop’s listings. Alltop’s premise, for those who don’t know, are in sourcing top quality sites and blogs and re-producing the...

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OK, you have a customer who wants to achieve something but wants to configure your product or service in such a way that severely restricts the possibility of achieving that goal. Previously I have discussed: 1. Shutting up and selling them what they want 2. Convincing them of the error of their...

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At the beginning of the week I started the response to the question of offering services based on customers wants in opposition to what they need. Having the expertise in your specialty means that you are in the best position to help your customers achieve their goals, but there will...

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They say never judge a book by its cover. Well, why is it that there is this continual debate that the development of an application running over the web costs too much? Is it because anything running in a web browser is compared to the cost of building a...

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Yesterday, I started a response to the question of whether to offer a customer what they want even if it contradicts what they want to achieve. The first theoretical approach I discussed was just shutting up and selling them what they want.I think you might agree that watching someone make...

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This question was asked by Colin Wilson in response to an article I wrote last month about “Socrates and Sales Management” and at the time I mentally stored it away to deal with in a specific post. Of course, I didn’t think that I would leave it this long to...

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My alarm clock is set extremely early, mainly because it takes such a very long time for me to drift from the depths of oblivious sleep to the optimistic heights of semi-comatose comprehension. At such times, the news headlines on the radio drift through my ability to comprehend much like...

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We are all aware of the importance of CRM systems and their value to businesses. But what about the important area of reliable sales qualification and forecasting which most existing sales contact packages do not comprehensively address? The need for reliable and up to date information on short, medium and...

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The sales process is a method. It can be one of the widely used selling methods, such as SPIN developed by Huthwaite, Target Account Selling (TAS), Consultative Selling and Miller Heiman’s approach, or it can be developed specifically for a company. Whichever method is used for the sales process, the...

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When I quit smoking three or so years ago, I employed a wide tactical array of support systems from nicotine inhalers to attending the NHS quitter’s sessions at my local health centre. I’ll admit that it was a strange experience, but the lesson I learned throughout those tortuous months while...

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Information is structured data that can be used to make decisions. What is the most dreaded task that management would rather they did not have to do? It’s management reporting, whether it is for management meetings or Board meetings. Why? Because it takes so long to produce the reports that...

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A store in Boston, Massachusets has a sign: “A sale is not a sale, until the customer is completely satisfied”. Satisfaction can occur weeks or months after the purchase of the product or the use of the service. The same is true for dissatisfaction, so only testing for satisfaction at...

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I’m certainly no expert in pre-history, though as a child I had an obsessive interest in dinosaurs and I certainly knew the difference between a Tarbosaurus and an Albertosaurus (Who doesn’t?), but it seems to me that sales as we know it, is essentially the same as when we first...

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I have often thought of the comparison between business and a living organism, for example, a business requires food (sales), to produce nourishment (cash), which enriches the blood (liquid assets), whose flow rate to the various organs (business functions), is determined by the brain (management), based on the INFORMATION available....

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For many vendors, it is usually much less expensive to retain existing customers that to acquire new customers. However, it may be that the potential to sell more products and services to existing customers is limited: sales to current customers may have reached saturation point, so the only opportunity, or...

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Motorcycles are dangerous. Trust me, I know, because I ride one (as does Nick), but what I have come to learn through experience is the safest way to enjoy what I love while minimising the chance of ending up as a statistic. When I ride a bike, I am trying...

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It’s a phrase that not so reputable merchants of clothing, such as suits, used to say when trying to impress customers. They would then go and talk about how good the suit would be in cold weather because it would keep you warm. The problem was how long would the...

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Customers will not all have the same needs and the same buying process, hence the sales process needs to be adapted to meet the needs of the different customer types or segments. It is helpful to have a blueprint of the sales process in order to make the changes needed...

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Socrates is famous for developing the ‘dialectic’ form of analysing truth known as ‘elenchus’ which basically involves exploring hypotheses through rational discourse and leading that hypothesis through its flaws and uncovering its contradictions. If philosophy can be defined as the search for truth and knowledge through cognitive reasoning and exploration,...

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Some companies use regular sales meetings, (weekly, monthly, etc.) as the qualification process for the forecast report. Others rely on the outcome of each opportunity to decide on how good the forecast report WAS! And some use both meetings and outcomes. That’s fine, but the problem seems to be that...

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A blueprint is a flowchart of all the steps in the sales process. Blueprinting, when applied to sales process, allows the planning of resources required at each step in the sales process to maximise conversion to the next stage and minimise the time needed to complete the sales cycle. The...

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It is funny, but I think most of us would like to be in the position that our company, brand or offering gets to the dizzying heights of the big conglomerate organisation. We love to hate the big monopolistic companies (I’ve touched on this in an earlier post entitled “How...

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How many times have you heard the phrase ‘how much for training or consultancy services? I wish Icould charge that!’? I think it these trying times we are going to hear it more and more. In most cases that argument centres on how much the prospective client hires out his staff....

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At the battle of Naseby 1645 one of the most famous battles of the English civil war was fought pitting two of the prominent figures of both the royalists and the parliamentarians against each other. Prince Rupert commanded a superior cavalry while Oliver Cromwell commanded the disciplined force of the...

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I have been off the radar for a few weeks with several projects, one of which has been the re-design of SymVolli.com the aim of which was to create a new web structure so that we can incorporate more solutions based material for our clients and readers. Business may indeed...

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As promised the business partner launch event held at Penguins on the 22nd of Feb was filmed and the results of which are available in high resolution on symvolli.com or on YouTube on the SymVolli Channel. Again I would like to thank Mark Buist of Penguins not only for hosting...

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Video on the web isn’t a new thing nor can it be said that it hasn’t been properly utilised by companies on the internet, but as internet connections get faster and faster and methods of downloading and consuming video gets easier, online video is becoming one of the most popular...

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I, like many others, have watched with concern over the past months as companies have announced falling profits as a result of the global economic hardships following the US sub-prime fiasco. So it is always pleasant to hear when companies are doing well, as Standard Life announced today when their...

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After reading a great forum post by Greg Lester on Sales Management 2.0, I got to wondering about how taking short cuts in everything including business ends up costing more in the long run. Last year, George wrote an article called “A successful business is like a successful athlete” drawing...

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Most of us in our business dealings have come across clients and prospects that think that because they are buying, that somehow they hold Zeus’s thunderbolt over you and can demand anything and everything, and that you will be most happy to comply in order to achieve a sale. I...

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With any product launch the development team are shackled to their desk, fed bread and water and worked 26 hours of the day until they have produced the work to deadline and finally that day has come and SymVolli has been let loose to work business magic. As such, up...

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Yesterday, SymVolli was launched to the public and for the first time our clients and prospects can see the changes to the existing system and the new features that have been added. It is hard to believe seeing what we have demonstrated to business partners and clients so far, the...

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Last Friday we held an awareness and launch event for the business partners of SymVolli which went fantastically. There we showed the first view of SymVolli that is to be launched to the public tomorrow. The Event was graciously hosted by Penguins a current system user who is due to...

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With the launch of the new SymVolli product next Tuesday, we are holding a SymVolli awareness and product launch session for our Business Partners on Friday. Penguins, a current SalesVision client and one of the first to be able to implement SymVolli into their company, have been kind enough to...

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When a plane goes into approach of the landing strip, the engines go into overdrive to give more power to the plane so that it can complete the final manoeuvre. And that is what it feels like as the final few weeks go into the official launch of SymVolli which...

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So, the spring cleaning has started and you might have noticed a new look to the blog and website and a new name to what was once SalesVision. The name we have replaced SalesVision with is “SymVolli” which is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘contribution’ which we think embodies...

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I read what I wrote this time last year for new years and much of what I said then is relevant now. Every business should at some point take stock of where they have been and what their business has done the past year and set goals for the following...

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In the final week before Christmas, this week is the week where in effect we are saying goodbye to this year. As so often is the case, this is a time of reflection both personally and as a business to reflect on the trials and triumphs of the past twelve...

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We all know that companies like McDonalds, Starbucks, Tesco, Microsoft etc. are all evil and are taking over the world… at least that is what you are likely to hear if any opinion was offered on any of these companies (never mind that these companies success rely upon a great...

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times - and quite literally this reflects two encounters I have had with sales people in the last week. I was privy to a call my sister made on the phone to a car salesman after she had seen...

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This is one of those dilemmas, where you have the choice of employing a sales person for your company and are faced with two candidates. The first is a person who knows the ins and outs of the company, the product and the clients and the second is a born...

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Socrates is meant to have said “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing”. Now, I am not going to go this far, as admitting that you know nothing in a sales presentation isn’t going to go down that well....

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After reading Ed Roach’s article on overcoming the cold calling selling challenge I got to thinking about whether cold calling still had a place in modern day business strategy. I too had a brief stint in selling over the phone, and like Ed, found picking up and dialling a number...

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Ron Finklestein’s blog article entitled …But I Could Never Sell is a well written anecdote on perceptions of sales by both sales people themselves and those outside the sales environment. The perception that selling is a bad thing or that a sales job is a 'necessary evil' is perhaps attributed...

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Cripes! It’s been a while since anyone has posted anything on the blog and since I am the forefront advocate of blogging in the company, I must hold my hand up and accept the blame for lack of penmanship… and no, I don’t use the word ‘cripes’ in normal conversation. When...

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In the sometimes messy world of PR and advertising, the name of the game is blowing your own trumpet and shouting louder than the other guy about how good you are. Yes, there is a fine line between showing your best side and bragging and here at SalesVision we try...

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