SELLING BY RESEARCH: The Concept of SBR

This blog is proud to say that the phrase "SBR " which stands for  'Selling by Research"was first coined here and the SBR techniques which have been lightly touched here is ORIGINAL to this blog. The idea first germinated here in the form of the written word.

Many Sales/Business Development Managers/General Managers/even VP's think that the more prospects, a salesperson visits, the better. Never mind, if it lays emphasis on quantity rather than quality. The Manager has the data to justify his sales forecasts for the next quarter. And at the month end, when the CEO is surprised to see that the sales person has visited the highest number of potential customers but has flopped in actual selling, the same manager will tell him “there is something wrong here, you lack application, you lack communication skills” the newbie can hardly say that the strategy was devised by the manager himself.  "Gee!! that’s not fair" you may say but trust me, these kinds of managers do exist and they are in the majority.

                  In industrial plants and manufacturing organizations, decision makers have no time to entertain sales-people on fishing expeditions. In Industrial Marketing, which comprises of selling of high or medium value systems, “cold-calls” can backfire on you. Before the net, cold calls were a must. Information is power.Cold calling in industrial marketing was done for collection of market information. Having information gave a party an immense advantage over its competitors. Today, the internet can help your sales-people to collect all information about prospects, making cold-calls redundant.

     " We live today in tumultuous times. In the future, people will think us as the most lucky people for never before has a generation witnessed such sweeping technical and socioeconomic changes within such a short time. If you want to survive, you need to adapt, to change with the times unless you want to be extinct. "

The Internet as an Information Source

          How do you collect information from the internet? Check websites of service providers usually involved in projects.  A few website types, where information is available free are as below. (This is only a partial list and you can find many more classes if you are interested)

(1)B2B trading portals and Business Directories: These contain all information and all you have to do is collection and compiling. 

Screen Shot of site. Look at the projects link at the lower right

(An example is http://www.processregister.com  which has a section on projects, which gives the location, value, status and the promoter. The website even has the projects classified sector wise. What else do you need?)

 Different types of projects classified typewise

 

(2) Job Portals: These give out information in the form of “Project Managers required for…” or “We require for our new project…”

(3) Websites of Consultants: Consultants often give out details of new consulting jobs they are working on, or have bagged.

If you think that you will get full details of a project from tapping into the above or similar resources, you will be disappointed. What you will get is “leads”. You will get all your detail information then by doing some web research on these leads.

Industrial Marketing &Selling initiated by researching the web, has been named SBR (Selling by Research)-by yours truly because it appears that I am the first person to discuss about this site in public, for which unfortunately processregister.com is not paying me anything. 

THE SUPERIORITY OF NUMBERS AND OTHER IRRELEVANT CONTENT

The United States of America.
Custer's last stand : The battle  of Little Bighorn 25th June 1876.

As the buffalo became scarcer, Indian tribes lives became hard. The Indians have had enough of being pushed into reservations too, the final straw being the US violation of  the treaty of Black Hills, and the unstoppable incursion of white Americans,
 as rumors circulated that gold (as in California) was there for the taking in the Black Hills. General George Armstrong Custer, a potential future US president, by nature headstrong, fought against forces led by the Indian Medicine Man and Chief "Sitting Bull" and Chief " Crazy Horse".
        Custer disregarded his scout's information that the Indian camps were enormous in size, and estimated about a thousand braves whereas, actually there was 2000-4000 Sioux braves. As was obvious, Custer and the US 7th Cavalry were wiped out, the only living being remaining being ironically Custer's horse 'Commanche'. Custer only had about 700 troopers  and then further proceeded to divide them into three units.

     No guys, you are still at the same site. I just started off in a different tack this time. Remember all the feedback you had to provide about competition including the market share variance if any and the order value of the competitors in the last quarter etc. Let's admit it this kind of data is impossible to give if you are selling capital equipment and your market is vast. I had often found myself as the sole person of my company in charge of everything of a state ( area  not less the entire UK). These forms were frustrating for so often you were required to give break-ups and they were huge waste of time. Moreover, it is quite probable that these forms were used as rough paper -no one ever read them-What do you do?-you collect market data or do you sell? I believe that the objective is served if your boss tells you what information he needs any time (when his boss calls him) and what he needs some time. You than satisfy his need by a mail/letter/fax whatever.
Simple, isn't it? The Indian mentality is to see if you have given the info in the form..Gee! Another example of why western sound marketing principles will not work in South East Asia, unless you tailor make them so as to suit the natural conditions.Coming back, the competition often had offices having three-four officers while I had to operate from my house, and they ruled.(I finally started targeting big customers and making my brand superior in numbers.and I kept my job that way)

          The point I want to make is FORGET all those things you may have heard about the quality of our sales people vs. theirs. These even out in the long run. What matters is how many players you have compared to the opposition. In an organizational perspective, it is the financial muscle you have.

  In this post,I want to continue my take (through Ries and Trout)on Karl Von Clausewitz's ideas and an important one is " Always keep your forces concentrated in an overpowering mass"-in other words' attack with all your resources at the decisive battle because history shows us that the army which is larger in size always wins. In WWII, had the US not joined the allies-giving them a huge superiority in numbers-the English and the French were being outfought and would have lost.   If you are American, than maybe your national anthem would have been "Dixie" if General Robert E. Lee had 25,000 more men. I did not know that either but the fact is that in Gettysburg ,1863 General Lee had 75,000 men while General Meade of the Union had 88,000 men. 

     

Sales & Marketing------Strategies( THE COLA WAR)

Dear Friends,

 I guess we discussed enough about Sales and Marketing last time. You should be able to say by now that the photo opposite is wrong, if the intention behind posting it was only for Sales &Marketing! Nah, I just got carried over as these guys really look cute in those superhero costumes.

The Error in the Picture
              The thing that is wrong with the photograph is that a couple of more of Marketing's sub-ordinates are not here. And one among them whom you just can't ignore, leaving sales aside,as he is really really indispensable. Monsieur "Strategy" is the one I refer to. 
In our profession,ladies and gentleman, costing is okay but she is no ogre. What is important is how and with what strategy, the approach is made. This is much more important  than the price in Selling of High-Value Equipment.

     In certain  Sales blogs,you often come across Lao's "The Art of War"but as I have said before, I prefer to read Clausewitz's book "On War"which reflects on history's famous wars to underscore the points in his book. Great rivalries today see the market leader take themselves up as the competition. The best defense is not to lack the courage to attack yourself says Clausewitz. If Coke had launched an own variant with a 'youth' target, Pepsi would have had no niche to operate.

[Karl Von Clausewitz was a 
General in the Prussian Army who wrote the  book in 1852 after retirement].

Clausewitz tells us at length about how the strengths of the enemy can often be converted to weaknesses.One of the best examples of this (says Ries and Trout)is how Pepsi Cola of New York socked one to Atlanta's Coca-Cola. In 1915,Coke was sold at a price of 10c for an unique capacity of its bottle which was 6 1/2 oz. Coke had no real competitors, which led to complacence.

MARKETING WITH SALES AND THE REST OF THE GANG

HOUSE OF CARDS

Hi Friends,

So-how are you and how's life been treating lately..Me? Its been a lousy few days.

As you must be knowing by now about my addiction with the net,I was on a high the other day when I saw a blog post. My eyes stuck to the title which said " Now shove this paper on sales face-Marketing". not those exact words, but I'm sure you get the drift. 

I stared at it open-mouthed in surprise and tried to know more about the author. But no information was available except for his name. Then it struck me that holy shit! this guy does not know the difference between sales and marketing as yet. Just think of a hypothetical situation where you are walking along with a werewolf expert in a deserted countryside. Suddenly a werewolf sees you both and gives chase, and your friend asks you " Who's that guy?" ..Eeeps!!! And you were counting on this dude to protect you!!! 
So, this post is gonna be about Marketing and Sales-the much misunderstood dynamic duo-so that the werewolf doesn't get you............

      The entire act of fulfilling a need of a section or few people by allowing them to purchase whatever it is they want is called marketing. Marketing is not one thing-it is a process where different activities come together and start from checking the need an entity has, devise way to fulfill that need, and sell it to the person who is wiling to pay the highest amount of revenue. We have our needs implanted biologically and later psychologically inside us since we are born. In the womb, all its needs were catered to automatically but after birth, the baby say feels odd and therefore bawls. It wants milk which he got every time he wanted it. So it now bawls and presto it gets it. This is the process of breast-milk marketing.  In subsequent posts, we are going to visit a man named Maslow, who will a important cog in this learning process.

We will learn about the need, how to fulfill it, how to position it, the importance of advertising, where to target it,how to give it, how to fix the costing etc. Look at the illustration above guys,  the cards here are the different functions, the card house is marketing. Some of the cards are more important like the one at the bottom-those are card (sale); card (need); card (costing). The cards above are slightly less important maybe. It all depends upon the application.

Rahul Bajaj and Bajaj Auto Ltd.

A LIGHTER MOMENT with CHUCKRAJANI

You friends are about to see a video clip for two reasons
1. See what cannot be done with the right attitude. Its time to take your butter too forget cheese
2. Its goddam'  funny

I just wanted to have a light moment before the video'

SO, here WE CCUUUMMMMMMMM!

The Clash of the Titans ..



Two superhumans in one earth
JUST One earth
So, who do they save? ...EXPEDIA.com

Be with you on or before 24 hours, till then it's love from BILBO



------------------------

REST IN PEACE.

Rest in Peace, Friend

The Demise of the Cold Call  

(From Hi-Value Capital Equipment Selling)

    

               In life, everything changes. From processes to organisms, there is nothing  absolute.  It is a fortunate fact that most of these changes take place very slowly, as otherwise, we would not have had our laws of academic fields (collectively called philosophy, here after) by which we try to understand, the things which happen all around us.        

               Some wits are of the opinion that science breeds ignorance. Their logic is that for every question science answers, two questions prop up. Therefore, science can never answer all questions because at any one time the number of questions is bound to be double or exponentially more then the number of answers. The thinking is I admit, original but the conclusions are in error. I ‘ll dispute this statement with a single sentence which is “do automobile designers start their design from the wheel?” No indeed! They do not.   
          

                  

           Similarly, capital equipment selling has also changed, in the sense that “cold calling” has become old and died. Let me define it still further, the cold call hasoutlived its usefulness just as the steam engine had given way to more modern locomotives. Cold calling was indispensable at one point of time for all selling, like the steam powered train. But in high value machinery and capital equipment selling, we do not design cars from the wheel.    However in volumetric selling, it’s still very much there-sales of hardware, valves, electrodes, machine oil mainly consumables etc. all depend upon cold calling.

                What is a high value sale? I’ll define it Anything from twenty grand and up. Earlier we did not have access to all that is happening in the world instantly. Hence, there were good chances that unless you shared the same watering hole with your competitors, you wouldn’t know who required your product. As competition grew more and more intense, watering holes became redundant and cold calling started. You dropped on potential customers and got introduced, got leads, got inquiries too if you were lucky. This is cold calling.

       

                But today with the modern technology you have at their disposal, that same information can be obtained from the internet in more details. Now let us  suppose you are an entrepreneur and you are purchasing filtration machines, of whatever type suits your purpose best, which is to filter and recover the mined coal particles and recover them. Say a  salesperson from a company comes along and makes a request to meet you. You meet him and he says they make filtration machines and he thought he would enquire if they have any requirement. You have plenty of things to do then to recite your requirement (you had met the man for the solution) so you direct him to an engineer, who tells him what he wants to know.  Say, if the proposal develops then  the person will want to meet you, but will you want to meet him?

Top B-Schools in India

www.siliconindia.com/mba/mba-survey-2013.html.
Top 100 B-schools in India

Why a " Business Administration" Diploma is Important in a Sales Career.

Yes, Indeed. Why do companies give so much weightage to MBA's (or even BBA's maybe) ? You are selling engineering equipment? So, how come irrespective of your engineering degree, if you and a MBA start from ground zero, you lose out every time?

Have you ever pondered this question ? In almost every office you'll find slimy apparent know-alls... Ask them this and you won't see their ugly mugs for the rest of the day!

Okay friends, enough of foreplay than.MBA's study for two more years after graduation. It stands to reason that they must be studying something. Yes, they do study a lot of 'shite' , but they also study plenty of things that matter.

NOSTALGIA TINGED WITH EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHTS

   Chowringee Road 69 years back.

      Dalhousie Square in 1944.

I guess since I don't have the copyrights to these pictures but telepathic consent was obtained from the owner.
Have a great time, people of Kolkata, don't think....IF ONLY.... that way is dead-ended

MY LONG ABSENCE

IN CONTEMPLATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL TRUTH

Hi Friends,

Now this may come in as a surprise but  I have not posted  anything for a long  time. No, my  knowledge TANK of sales management lessons of capital equipment  has not become empty. There are still many secrets in this brain cells, which will benefit the world and you, dear reader, but then patience is a virtue we must practice. For life is all about hope  which is about practice without disappointment. For this you need patience. 

I had gone on my philosophical sabbatical and have lots and lots of facts to share. 

So keep watching this space , dear reader

Till we meet again, very soon ----"Take care" 

With lotsa love from

Someone from Bag's End.

HOW TO ATTEND A TENDER OPENING (PUBLIC SECTOR)

AS YOU'RE ON THE WAY

I do not know about you guys but I find the journeying part of any process, the most monotonic. The beginning is well, a little hard but after you begins and before you end   is the period which you may find boring, but is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART in a tendering process.

In my sales career, I have had the experience of excellent beginnings neutralized by poor follow up. And it is here that temperament and the confidence is necessary. People will try to sledge you so that you lose your concentration. There are no ground rules here. Everything is below the belt. And it is here that experience pays.

Therefore, it follows that it is here, in this stage, that you will be subjected to ridicule & challenges and as in cricket, it is necessary to keep your head straight. Think of all those runs you have scored against better attacks (if you have not, imagine you would have...forget about real life, if you cannot even DREAM about winning, you are suffering from acute loser blues! My friend, perhaps you should consider a different career and I'm not trying to be funny).

I think that before we move on to another block, maybe we should have a recap. And here goes

Tender Openings: What a specialist does

1. Be present when the tender is being opened, if it is a press tender.Do not be late.

2. Try to make a rolling-your-eyes.."young kids really" expression to the bossman.

3. Don't antagonize anyone but stand up to get the information you are entitled to.

4. If the indentor is known to you, do be in a hurry to end the process, so that the other guys know the least.

5. Judge the competition and you have the idea about their bids.

6. Do not be the first person to leave the room but don't be a pest either so that they can push you out.

7. Give interesting technical answers should you get a chance.

8. Keep your ears in the customer's room. No, I don't mean use the extendable ears invented by Fred and George in "the order of the Phoenix" but think about it and it is possible.

ANECDOTE

One of the biggest dealers of KBL once tried his best to get me out of the race. He could not do anything at the lower level and went up and met the GM of the IOCL refinery. His attempt flopped and I got that order for 2 nos HSC pumps with drives and accessories, i.e. M+P landed that supply order. I don't need to mention the dealer's name as the biggest dealers in  Assam and one of the biggest in India. The same company M+P  later became a little inedible. but life is like that. Moreover, I was lucky that by the time I quit, I had acquired the rudimentary basics of  capital goods marketing. Today M+P market in NE has gone down and the conditions exist which are only a little better then when I was there. It's become the wild west all again

Finally, I forgot to tell you how to ask for an extension. Irrespective as to whether you are organized or not, you'll always find that you are unable to complete in time. Send over a fax or an e-mail asking for an extension because of blah blah( the best excuse always is to the tender justice). Remember, always ask two times what you want and you will  get it. There is a way to do everything and everything is best done in that way. You should either do it or learn how the other man does it, and then try it your way. Its the runs which matter, not how they come

I guess that does it for today.

See you next time. 

Take care and have an awesome day

Bilbo

(I put in the Beatles photo ‘cos there is a similarity...we are on the road too but specially because I am a fan)

Dear Sir or Madam, will ya read my blog

it took me days to write it, I just slogged.

Its got a number of ads like a flick

Please why don't ya just click....
..Starving Blog writer...
Starving Blog writer...........

Free Kick - free flash game,flash game,small game,online flash game

COMMERCIAL TERMS & CONDITIONS

I have seen plenty of sales engineers who think their job is only technical. Is that really so? Definitely not. Say you are reading a detailed Notice Inviting Tender and you mark all clauses containing the words ‘debit’ or ‘credit’ with the remark ‘Accounts’, than you really are living in a fool’s paradise. Commercial terms are an indispensable part of any engineering parcel of any salesperson selling engineering equipment.

CAREFUL STUDY OF TERMS & CONDITIONS

If you ever want to rise up the ladder by your hard work alone and one day manage a team of juniors, you need to be familiar with Managerial Accounts,which is a different subject from financial accounts.

Managerial accounts are those figures and ratios, which your management will study. These are the figures by which the-powers-that-matter, if you head a regional office-the management and if you are the CEO-the stockholder's interests. These are the people you are ultimately responsible to, so ignore them at your own peril.

      What are these commercial terms and what happens if we do not know them..? If I do not know my commercial terms, then I have no business in meeting customers. Not convinced? OK, let us say you are in a electronic appliances store, and you want to buy a laptop,  having already decided the model. As you are satisfied technically, you figure  that you need to know the price. And then you see the price say 280$. You think its a little expensive but never mind, you like it. Then as you open your wallet and start to take out the plastic money, it strikes you that you have no information at all and unless you have some more information, you CAN'T buy it, meaning there's no SALE. Being more precise
"There is no SALE because of the lack of the basic commercial terms"

            But what information that I do not have? What are all these things which I do not know? I have no idea whether the prices are inclusive of taxes and duties. I don't know what other charges are applicable e.g. Packing & Forwarding, Excise Duty, State sale tax, any discounts applicable? I even don't know whether they will accept a cheque or a credit card, etc.( But surely, I can get to know all this information by just asking the staff. Yes, I can do that but selling the laptop is not the issue here. Say, you are at a remote site and you want to place an order fast for some equipment. You have got two quotes, but one has no mention of basic commercial terms.)
        This is the kind of trouble you land your customer in if you omit the commercial terms. Please note that in business lingo, the words’intentional’ and ‘nonintentional’ mean the same. Your forgetting may be a human error but if the  customer suffers a loss because of your messed up quotation, that will not help his career too

The basic Commercial Points that requires a mention are

      (A) Price basis which tells the customer that your prices are quoted ex factory or FOR(this    means Free on Road-it tells the customer that you will bear the transportation expenses) or whatever.

  B) Taxes & Duties: If these are included in the quoted price; what are the rates ; what taxes are being charged etc.

  C) Delivery: How much time will the delivery take. In the laptop case, it will be immediate off  shelf but for customized items, deliveries differ.

      

      D) Payment Terms : 100% against material or through bank or through LC (letter of Credit) or maybe you want a 30% advance payment along with the PO and balance against delivery. We will discuss about this later for delivery and payment are very crucial factors for selling capital equipment.

      E)  Transportation and Transit Insurance : 

      

      F) Validity: Your price is valid till when. Say the customer comes after 6 months, will your price remain the same. Therefore you mention a period 4 weeks, 12 weeks whatever period your prices will be the same and after that subject to renewal.

      These are the main commercial terms. A lot of others are there like P&F costs, warranty, service support, accessories etc. but these are the main. Without one of them your proposal will remain incomplete.

For International trading /selling , we have a set of commercial terms uniform all throughout the world and  which is acceptable and applicable to all nations. These are called INCOTERMS. Every year they are reviewed and revised, if necessary. The picture below will tell you about INCOTERMS .You do not have to be scared of INCOTERMS. They are certainly not rocket science.

That was quite a post.

This point was important however. Anyway, whatever-hope you like it.

Love and best wishes from

    ------------------------

(Someone from Bags-End)

SALES vs. REVENUE

SALES vs.REVENUE          ____________

Mirror, yes...  you!, Mirror on the wall

Among Sales and Revenue, who is more
 likely to  fall?

Well, good sales figures will make your mid-term report sleek,

But with no revenue, your future (at the year end) appears bleak. 

       And so would any self respecting magic  mirror have said had it been in such a position that it could answer questions. ( I am actually surprised that Rowling did not have any magic mirror in the entire Harry Potter series Yes, there were all moving photographs but then a mirror is a mirror. Wait a minute, there was one in the first right?.. that's enough of mirrors.
Let us go back to the subject).

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM

Therefore, we have the modest and suave 'Sales' on one side and the loutish and brutal “Revenue" on the other.” So who is more important? Sales surely because I have named this blog as " Salesgyaan". Well no friends, it is actually the reverse. Revenue is much much more important. Let me define what is revenue? Revenue is what the company earns from the customer against the supply of its services or products which has been done against the long and long purchase or work order (for capital equipment, purchase orders are usually long). You have the ROI (the Return of Investment)  ...You made a product for $60, suffered an expense on it of $10, paid another $10 to the government as tax and the balance $20 is the revenue or PAT (profit after tax). This is what  Revenue is. 

Now you are confused!! Wait a minute, you say. If this is revenue, then what is the sale? What is selling? If we had been talking about selling groceries or tools or F.M.C.G, then sales and revenue has only a small gap or none, say maximum 1 or 2 days. However, in capital equipment, the entire scenario changes. You are investing millions and you are getting back millions, so you just can't afford to be nonchalant and cavalier in your approach. Everything needs to be written down; the contract has to be signed, both parties agreeing to the points written. This paper or contract is your Sale. It is a contractual assurance that party X is going to buy ABCD from party Y for a value of $Q million dollars. And the process will be done in this way. A long list will then follow describing the breakup, which you had hammered out with your counterpart in the purchaser's company.

 Here, in the final stages you will see that people are going bang bang for 500$ when you are selling or buying million dollar products. Do not point these situations out as ridiculous  but accept them as compared to your sale value, its peanuts. That $500 can mar your case. You see everybody wishes to have played a role in decreasing expenses and what better role to play that to cut down the profits of the manufacturer who wants to make a buck doing fair business. Its a different matter that the Air Conditioners go on and on even in empty rooms, nobody switches off the fans before they quit..that's entirely different.(Never point out these things to the customer..i was only telling you as a fellow salesperson).

So, you have got your sales order or you have achieved your sale, can you now forget it? 

No you can't..May be your responsibility has decreased somewhat  but it is still there,.very much there..and it will be there till you get the revenue as per the steps outlined in the Purchase Order or Sales Contract.. We will tackle those steps in our next discussion. 

Before we finish, it seems that plenty of people are curious as to the word Gyaan and Salesgyaan. Well, Gyaan in Hindi means knowledge or wisdom. So-Salesgyaan means imparting knowledge of sales ( revenue too, hence) and 'the selling process' to those who want to avail of the facility, or wish to know of the same.

so  friends
auf Wiedersehen,
-------someone---------
from Bag's end

NB: Ever since the movie,my signing myself Bilbo has become too common. Though when i started, I had never even heard of the movie. Therefore, from now on., I'll sign 'someone from bag's end' till I can think of a more suitable name. (or maybe you can suggest one for me)

Flashback Five - The Best Dirty Harry Movies

DO YA FEEL LUCKY, PUNK?

Flashback Five - The Best Dirty Harry Movies

MIS And Feedback

....
Ha-ha. Does the pic seems funny to you?  It does to me. Now, if you are  thinking that ' the bastard is about to go in a long, sanctimonious lecture, again..Help :-) Lol!
 You need not be scared. I just want to tell you or "share with you" something about "Management Information Systems" and their role in Indian Companies.

Let us analyze what Mr. Boss is doing on top of the arrow. The conversation may be something like this.
Boss: Nope! I don't like it.Somehow alters the view ; aesthetic point of view. Not that I expect you bummers even to know what "Aesthetic" means.You people do not know what a good sales view is. Put me the...ere, instead.
Engineer #8: ( sotto voice) Does he mean that his bum is aesthetic, considering that's what we see almost all the time?
Engineer #7: ( sotto voice) Ha-ha; good one dude but keep your voice low

         A very important system in an organization which can result in an organization being buried  and failing woefully or rising up from the ashes, sphinx like, is MIS. What is MIS? MIS or management information system is the system available in your organization through which information flows, not gossip, not political diatribe but positive information. Business Information which does good for your company.

When the MNC's first arrived in India, we were optimistic that we were going to see some good management practices, after all. But nothing happened like that. The amalgamation of Indo-European Management thinking, literally made sales people account for every minute of your time. There is a particular MNC in Noida, where even branch managers have to fill out timing..Now, I believe that filling up a form where you are required to mention the waiting time too is absurd.( There is a journey time, a waiting time, a meeting time and a miscellaneous time)
There are plenty of reasons why this is absurd but my main bone of contention is that the minute someone is asked to do that, he or she ceases to be loyal soldiers of the commander-in-chief, if they comply.They instead become hear and doers, they become "yesman"-that creative spark inside them fizzles out and the challenge of capital equipment selling becomes a dodo.

        Well, a kangaroo lady I know and plenty of other departmental heads will not understand that. They'll say "  we are paying you big bucks man, this is the least you can do for us. They then proceed to tell you what to do and at the end of the year they ask what happened to you. Hey lady..back off. You want to place responsibility on me with you taking all the decisions? This is not acceptable at all. These lapses all the more important in capital equipment selling where there are few orders and less players. You gotta speak up for your rights.

         This is a tragedy. Today we have one of the best inventories for minds if not the best and look where we are going, in comparison to the Chinese-next door. Say you are Fernando Torres and the coach tells you that he must score a hat trick. A hat-trick has to be made irrespective of the side of the field where the goals are to be scored. So, Torres finds the going tough and ultimately score his hat-trick against his own team. 

Torres scoring for Chelsea against Sunderland while Juan Mata looks on.








     You must be in splits by now now...but these things do happen. Look around in your office, and you'll find the same happening day-in and day-out. Therefore, in selling capital equipment, let your team the freedom to think for themselves as per their capabilities. Take stock in weekly sales meetings. Gather all information and link it together to get information about new projects. Tell them what to do and why they should do it.

Do not tell them to do something without any explanations. For this indirectly tells him that you don't trust him. And lack of trust is one of the greatest demotivators -in the field of B2B direct selling of high value capital equipment. 
with love
friends
Bilbo.

See this : Arnie as Darth Vader

Hi Friends,

I just want to post this now. Recd it about 5 minutes back from Arnie

@ Scharwzeneggar..I can't believe this pal. Thanks ad infinitum