In Sales Only One Metric Matters

I am not sure why they have performance reviews for sales people. As I am learning, there is only one metric sales is judged on, which is something of a change for me since I have been more on the marketing side for most of my career.

For, example, here is an example of an account where I think I am doing very well:

• Our company had absolutely no contacts at the account. Got foot in the door, learned the organization, and found an internal advocate for our company & products
• Using the internal advocate, figured out key decision makers in the area we work in. Set up multiple meetings to establish personal rapport and showcase our product line at the senior level
• Moving the ball forward, got the company to sign a bilateral non-disclosure agreement (NDA), allowing deeper technical and business discussions on how our two companies may engage
• Customer agreed to take samples of our product for analysis and quality assurance
• Overall, things have gone forward very well, taking the typical amount of time required for a design-cycle in our segment. The customer will be completing their internal engineering analysis soon, allowing us to enter into negotiations.

My company's response: Where's the purchase order?!? Any account where there is no PO must be a problem. Or YOU might be the problem.
But, hey, this is why salespeople are paid the big bucks. I just need a close a few of these.

Explaining What You Do To Your Child

I have trouble explaining what I do to most adults, so when my five year old daughter asked me what I did for work, I came up with the simplest explanation I could find: "I sell computer chips."

She paused a moment. "Do they taste good?"

I guess I deserved that. My daughter knows what a computer is, but to her a chip is still a Pringle.

The other thing I have a hard time explaining is the fact that I alternatively home office or leave on the road for long periods of time. She gets it when I have "to go to work on a plane" and have to be away from home for a "long time" (any period of time over two days is long time to her), but "working from home" is still a hard concept for her to grasp. But most of corporate America has the same problem, so she is not alone there.

How They Hang out in Spain?

Will The Last One Out Of Kodak Please Shut Off The Lights?

Kodak plans to cut up to 3,000 more jobs

On top of 25,000 to 27,000 layoffs targeted since 2004, Kodak is reducing its payroll even further to accommodate last month's $2.35 billion sale of its health-imaging unit

So about 30,000 in three years - the size of a whole town.

This is a sad example of a company that adopted too late to a disruptive technology: digital imaging. Kodak was fat and happy making huge margins off film and paper, but then the earth moved beneath them. By the time they realized it, they did too little too late.

The article claims that Kodak "created the world's first digital camera" and has over 1,000 patents in the area,. That is little consolation to the stock holders who have lost billions of dollars of assets. Kodak may have been ahead in the lab, but the business people just ignored it as they raked in tons of cash out of the old business, allowing others to carve out huge pieces of the new market.

The Executive Admin

I watched a colleague get into a argument with the CEO's admin and wanted to remind him that she has more power than any VP in the company.

Actually, salespeople know that one of the golden rules is to treat admins with the same respect as the people they work for. They are really part of a two-person team that run that box on the org chart. And I don't know any CEO, EVP or other ranking executive who couldn't get through his week (or even to lunch time) without the support of their admin. She (and it is a she 99% of the time) controls his schedule, who gets into see him, can sign off for him on many documents, and has his ear when it comes time to promote and fire. It doesn't pay to get on this person's bad side.

In fact, I so closely link an admin and executive together that one time at a tradeshow reception I had to do a double-take when I was introduced to an executive's wife. I was expecting to be introduced to his admin and had to cover my surprise. My subconscious had so linked the executive and his receptionist as a "couple" that I had assumed that she would be the one with him at the event.