One of the things I have been working on is getting a better understanding on how to use partners to make more revenue. I have been in channel sales 98% of my career and I have a great understanding of the space and have seen channel sales groups that run well and ones that are horrible. What is is about? I thought it would benefit everyone if I put together an ebook outlining a way to maximize your channel sales footprint. The ebook will cover what I see are the top four necessities of any channel sales company. How to identify partners Recruitment Enablement Activation The finishing touches are being made on the small ebook. This is SOCOM Sales first release of a guide and I have actually had a great time putting it together. This means that there will be more great whitepapers and ebooks to come. So how do I get it? The only way this ebook is going to be made available is through the free SOCOM Sales RSS feed. If you are interested and have not grabbed my feed yet, now you have a reason to do it. The link will go live in the RSS feed early this week so signup now and you will ...

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Most or many people now day's, the thought of working at home is the ultimate dream. After all, many of us really dislike our jobs; and perhaps we dislike the compensation we receive for doing those tedious jobs even less. Some of us also have a hard time dealing with our upper management, who may or may not be good people. Given all these factors, working at home, in the peace and comfort of being in your own realm, seems like an incredibly awesome idea. Photo credit: Jeff Henshaw If you are thinking about working at home, then you must first consider all of the variables that will be involved in your possible decision. Working at home, like working outside in the real world carries its own set of advantages and disadvantages. It would be good for you to scrutinize each individual argument, and examine how much weight certain arguments should have on your decision. Some of the best advantages of working at home include: 1. Being your own boss for. Most people resent having to work for the benefit of someone else because in reality you are just working hard to maximize their profits. We are all naturally selfish in our own ways. ...

The wizards are working at LinkedIn. I was happy and surprised when I logged into LinkedIn today and saw that they had changed the GUI. LinkedIn has only been making small changes that I know of and this latest update is nothing short of remarkable! The new interface is completely different and seems to be made with AJAX now. The layout is outstanding and customizable. I love LinkedIn. I have written a few other posts about it. The most read is Cleanup your LinkedIn Profile. The changes that have been made make LinkedIn a real business tool. Not that it wasn't before but it was clunky to navigate and it just didn't work aesthetically. From the LinkedIn blog here are some of my favorite updates from LinkedIn's latest release. LinkedIn System of Navigation   Customizable widgets panel   They also provide a video on the great updates and features.  

Let's think out of the box: Really means, "Can you creatively anemic people please come up with something?" The person who says, "Let's think out of the box" is usually desperate for a new idea and surrounded by people who are not known for generating ideas. So the phrase is actually an announcement that says, "I'm in trouble." I need someone who can hit the ground running: Really means, "I am screwed." Because no one can hit the ground running. You need to at least assess what race you're in and who else is running. Do you have the bandwidth? Note that bandwidth is not time. It is something else. If you ask someone "Do you have time?" you mean, "Am I a priority?" If you ask someone "Do you have bandwidth" you mean, "You seem like your brain is fried. Can you pull yourself together to do this for me?" Let's hit a home run: "I'm desperate to look good. Even though the odds of a home run are slim, I'm banking on one because it's the only thing that'll save me." Something for all your sports fans to remember: If you have a bunch of solid hitters you don't need a ...

One of the challenges I have had in sales if finding great information and remote mentors to follow. A remote mentor is what I call a knowledgeable person in their field and puts out books, podcasts or some other material that I can ingest. These people serve as mentors to thousands of people they have never met by producing information that is relevant as well as informative. Books are great but I have found that dynamic media like blogs, podcasts, videos and other online media is more beneficial. The reason for this is that the information that gets posted or released is more apt to be cutting edge or suited for today and not discussing business models from 6 months to years ago. The Straight Line is a good example. The writer is an active professional providing services to growing companies that need better insights and an outside voice to get them on the positive track to increased revenue. I also keep taps on is Sales 2.0 where Nigel and his group of professional sales people write on topics that are affecting business and sales on many levels. ForeverSellin  is a site that I recently came across and have been keeping track of as ...

I was looking through some of my favorite sales sites and stopped at ForeverSellin and saw this great video posted about a sales guy going into a meeting. I can count about a dozen things that this guy does wrong during the meeting besides being overly annoying. any ideas?

I want to write more in this blog but have a difficult time finding truely original content to post. Everyone knows that you need to pick up the phone and call your leads and most people know that closing the deal is not always as easy as asking for it (Sometimes it is.) So I thought I would start a section called Lessons in Sales since I am inspired by the Lessons on Blogging from the Blogging Experiment site. Sales is for the hungry: When you are new to sales you are a bit overwhelmed to say the least. Product features, pricing, positioning. None of this matters initially. If you want to succeed you need to have that fire in your belly which typically comes from lack of food and REALLY want to make some money. People get into sales because they know someone or have heard that there is some serious amounts of cash that can be made. Seth Davis played by Giovanni Ribisi talks to this in the opening scene of the movie. Seth is running an illegal card game to make ends meet and is approached by an old friend to get started selling junk stocks. All Seth had ...

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