I had an interesting discussion with a man today that owns his own software and services company. He would fit into that midsize area with only 180 employees. With the revenue that he explained to me that they were pulling in, it was pretty clear that the current economy wasn't doing to much damage to his business (if he was telling the truth). He said something on the call that got me thinking. He was explaining to me that his large sales team produces the revenue for the company. The field sales and the inside sales groups produce the most money for the business. I started scratching my head. Do sales people really produce revenue for a business? Well I guess it's a matter of semantics. I think the customers are the ones producing revenue for a business, not a sales person. It's the customers wallet the money is coming out of so wouldn't it make sense? The point of a sales person either field or inside is to take an opportunity and then move it through the sales cycle. Getting the customer from being interested in a product or service and actually paying for it. Marketing should be targeting new customers ...

I am kind of a bag whore. I have five laptop bags and briefcases that I switch between throughout the year. I like to get a new one for myself around Christmas. I had to find one that I liked enough to spend money on. Though I like new business cases to carry my laptop and paperwork, I don't exactly like to spend a lot of money on something I am going to hate in a few weeks. The OGIO bags are great products. One of the guys in my office has one and I've been coveting it for a while. My Timbuk2 bag is one of my favorites and the OGIO looks just as durable. It may not be something I walk into a board meeting with but for an everyday business bag, it is perfect. Corporate City Corp Corporate City Corp Material: 600D poly / 420 diamond dobby nylon Size: 18" x 13" x 6" Fits laptops: 15" x 11" x 2.5" Linear inches: 37" Weight: 3 lbs , 7 oz Capacity: 1500 cu. in. Warranty: Lifetime against defects in material or workmanship Padded top drop-in laptop sleeve Audio pocket with headphone exit port Cell phone pocket with cell lifter Adjustable padded shoulder strap Pullman handle attachment sleeve Organizer panel Palm / calculator pocket Internal file separators Fits most 15" laptops

Building a Channel Sales team is not an easy job and getting one running is even more difficult. It is not an impossible task though. Many larger companies already have the infrastructure and just need to align them correctly. Smaller companies may need to bring on a few key people to bring the team up to speed quicker. Channel Sales Managers The Channel Sales Manager or CSM is the spearhead of the team. Broken into territories, these are field based sales people that know how to manage key accounts. Besides being a sales team, they are required to manage these accounts and help enable and active them to produce revenue. As the field sales people, they will be going on location to your partners and discussing opportunities and training the partners sales teams. Channel Sales Representitives Every good outside sales team has an inside component. The Channel Sales Rep covers a territory and is aligned directly to the CSM of the same territory. The CSR will be the point person for many requests by the partners and will cover a lot more of the administrative and process driven events. Inside Sales Representative If you have an inside sales component and do not what the CSRs managing ...

Make the sales process a collaborative one and you'll find yourself in the position of trusted advisor instead of just another company trying to make a sale. One of the most difficult and feared situations in selling is getting hit with hard to answer questions early in the sales process. Questions such as: "Why should I buy from you?" and "What makes your product better than your competitor's?" For most salespeople these questions are an irresistible invitation for what I refer to as the "Presentation Trap," an open invitation from the customer to "tell me all about your product." Most salespeople jump at the opportunity and declare why their company is better than the competition's and in most cases this wastes time for both the customer and the salesperson. The exceptional salesperson will turn even the toughest questions into an opportunity to help their customer and themselves more clearly understand the situation and determine if their solution is actually a fit. They recognize the key thought -- "Prescription without Diagnosis is malpractice." To demonstrate this, think about how a doctor would respond to a question from a patient, before the doctor has completed a diagnosis. The patient asks, "Why should I choose you ...

I'm not an executive of The Big Three. I don not have a private jet to fly me around for business. I need to take commercial airlines just like most people. And like most, I site in the back of the plane. Nothing bothers me more than when some inconsiderate person sitting in the seat in front of me reclines their seat as far as it can go. Effectively deciding that they want to turn the next couple hours of my lisfe into the most uncomfortable flight ever. There are not too many things short of rolling up the recent copy of Business Week and whacking the guy on the head that will get the point across. People that do this have no ones comfort in mind but their own. I found this video online that shows how you can keep the jack ass from reclining the seat to begin with. How To Keep Motherfu#%s From Putting Their Seats Back from fi5e on Vimeo.

A reader sent me this link and though it nessassary to pass along. Many people in sales are looking for new and fresh leads that they can target for their product and services. LeadVine allow you to do this with thousands of other people just like you. LeadVine is an online social community that simplifies how companies find new customers. Search listings and make money with the information that you already have. How can LeadVine make you easy money? Everyday people come across information that is useless to them but useful to someone else. Ever know of any friends looking for a new job, looking to add a new room to the house, looking to build a new website, etc.? What did you do with that information? Probably nothing. There are companies willing to pay for that type of information, from recruiters, construction contractors, web developers, etc. LeadVine gives you the ability to make money with information that is at your finger tips. Use LeadVine to find companies willing to pay you for valuable information you come across.

You've probably heard the story of the golfer who steps up to the tee box and hits a wicked duck hook out of bounds. Embarrassed, he reaches in his pocket, tees up another ball and again, hits another horrific twisting shot left out of bounds. Now angry and determined, he walks back to his bag, gets another ball, tees it up again, and duplicates his first two shots out of bounds to the left. In a fit of frustration, he slams his club into his bag, aggressively flings his club over his shoulders, mumbles some choice expletives to himself as he’s chipping his teeth, and heads up the fairway uncertain as to where he's going to drop a ball to make his next shot. I use this as an analogy often in my talks with groups when discussing business professionals who are determined to be successful yet continue to fail. People like: The determined sales executive who is working extremely hard and is not bringing in the sales and makes the decision to work even harder. The determined manager who has a tight grip on her team but cannot get them to take their game to the next level, so she implements even more ...

Being in sales or having a professional position where you have to travel for business means that you have to keep your receipts. Well...keep your receipts or do not get paid back from an expense report. I can't count the number of times I have lost a receipt from a trip and had to fight the expense or just eat it and have the money taken from my own wallet. Keeping track of your business receipts is a must for any person on the road and there are many tips and tricks to doing this effectively. Skill level one is just to carry an envelope where you can put all of these business receipts instead of just stuffing them in your wallet or packet where you will probably lose them. Reciepts come in all sizes, from small sheets of paper smaller than a dollar bill and can be the size of a full sheet of paper like most hotel receipts. But the real issue is what you do with those receipts and papers to keep them organized.Having a card reader, document scanner makes all of that easy as pie. The Porsche of document scanners is the NeatDesk from the Neat Company. This ...

Avoid Getting Your E-mails Deleted From the E-Business Newsletter It's easy to fall into bad e-mailing habits because the whole format can begin to feel casual. By now everyone knows to avoid writing in all caps and using emoticons, but people often make the mistake of shooting off overly chummy professional e-mails and forming a devil-may-care disregard for grammar and punctuation. Simple rule of thumb: treat e-mail the same way you'd treat phoning someone. Get to the point, but be polite about it. Here is a look at some of the subtler nuances of the written word to help get your message across with style and grace: 1) Do An Introduction Launching right into your request is the same as bursting into someone's office and making demands. "Please send me this report" is a cold opener, and it may lead someone to brush it off until they're good and ready to help. "Good morning, I hope you had a nice weekend" will ease your reader into a much more cooperative state. 2) Conduct a Read-Through The software world has yet to invent a "Does This Sound Curt and Snippy?" check. This means your spelling and grammar may be perfect, but your tone may not be. ...

I knew this day was coming. Linkedin is a resource professionals have been using for several years to keep in contact with old coworkers as well as build their networks for business use. LinkedIn has been rolling out some new features over the past year hinting that major changes were in the works. It looks like the next phase of LinkedIn features was released last night in the form of LinkedIn Applications. No longer will LinkedIn be seen as a boring text based log of who you have in your network and what career changes they have made. They now have opened the interface to allow for robust interaction with your network by adding applications like WordPress blogs, Box.Net, TripIt and others. I was most interested in the WordPress application but it seems that you need to have your blog hosted on WordPress. For those of us that have self hosted WP blogs, we are out of luck. It looks like LinkedIn didn't think this one all the way through since many professionals have self hosted blogs and now we are kept out of using this functionality. TripIt With today's myriad of travel sites, even the most experienced traveler has their hands full managing ...