Sales Success by Design | Chris Lott

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I walk into our conference room and the visiting presenting manager, salesman and sales engineer were waiting there to give us their “dog’n pony” in hopes of my organization partnering with them. I know all of presenters from a previous life. All very professional and successful in their own right. What happened next was incredibly short sighted on their part however. Below are my 5 takeaways from this experience.

1.) Assumed that we were all “buddies” and took personal liberties at my expense immediately in front of my boss. Also took on a very condescending tone. An “I will school you” approach.

b.) Commented on me personally about my age and looks. “Wow, Chris, your picture must have been taken some time ago on LinkedIn because you look a lot older in person”. You could have heard a pin drop after that comment.

As the strong influencer in the decision of whether to take on this product, or not, I was not impressed and quite honestly ticked off. With that said I continued on and took one for the team in an effort to help my company make a good decision. Now with a very critical eye however.

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For most of my career I have been involved in technical product sales. This is an ever changing market with some serious training challenges. Train a sales staff on a product today to only have that product change drastically next month and your efforts negated.

Does Product Knowledge Equal Sales Success

There is also a credibility issue I have found when a new salesperson gets trained on a product to only find later that it’s not what I had trained on any longer. They now look at my sales manager abilities as less than. Frustrating.

What I prefer to train on are probing, non-interrogating, questions to find pains and repetitions. Then through research and presentations using technical, vendor, and manufacturer resources… uncover and present an up-to-date customized focused solution proposal.

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As one of the 5+ million that received a Kindle Fire for the holidays a new tablet love affair has transpired. It doesn’t have a camera and bluetooth but I don’t need either. My Samsung Galaxy S II works just fine there. Its 7” size is perfect to carry around for all my personal and business duties. The later being a huge unexpected surprise.

As I started searching for various Kindle Fire apps in Amazon’s app store I quickly found that not all the choices I had become accustomed to were available. Even those that I did find were not ready for prime time on the Fire or any tablet for that matter. Maybe Google Apps Marketplace? While you can view apps in the Google/Android Marketplace from a Kindle you can’t install them from there. Hmmmm…

Was the Kindle Fire “ready to rumble” for business and sales use afterall? The hunt was on.

Kindle Fire Business and Sales Apps Options

So what are the options… if any?

Option 1: Of course I could always “root” my Fire and access Google’s Marketplace but that wasn’t my goal. Also, this process is not for the weak of heart and I wanted to drink the Amazon services device “koolaid”. What could I do with this $199.00 tablet using the services and apps offered by Amazon for sales and business?

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If you want your WordPress website to be at the top of the game then these are the “must have” plugins in my opinion. Check in regularly as this list is continually changing.

Plugin Categories:

Coding
Marketing Branding
Post Enhancements
Profile Enhancements
Search Engine Optimization SEO
Spam Anti Bot
Utility Tools

Could I get you to link to this article? Copy-n-paste text link:

<a href="http://www.lottspace.com/2012-top-50-wordpress-plugins.html">2012 Top 50+ WordPress Plugins | SalesBlog!</a>

Coding

Allow PHP in posts and pages: NEW Allow PHP in posts and pages allows you to add php functionality to WordPress Posts and Pages whilst still retaining HTML tags. http://www.hitreach.co.uk/wordpress-plugins/allow-php-in-posts-and-pages/

Marketing Branding

Ad Injection: NEW Injects any advert (e.g. AdSense) into your WordPress posts or widget area. http://www.reviewmylife.co.uk/blog/2010/12/06/ad-injection-plugin-wordpress/

Emu2 – Email Users 2: NEW Allows admins to send an e-mail to the single, mutible oder group of blog users. You can extract all e-mail adresses as well for external mass mailings. http://1manfactory.com/wordpress-send-administrator-e-mails-to-all-you-users-with-email-users-2-plugin-emu2/

Login Logo: Drop a PNG file named login-logo.png into your wp-content directory. This simple plugin takes care of the rest, with zero configuration. http://txfx.net/wordpress-plugins/login-logo/

Datafeedr Random Ads V2: The Datafeedr Random Ads plugin is a free plugin which allows you to simply and easily show random ads anywhere in your template files or using widgets. http://www.datafeedr.com/random-ads-plugin/

Tweet old post: Plugin for tweeting your old posts randomly. http://www.ajaymatharu.com/wordpress-plugin-tweet-old-posts/

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Sales people fret and stew over hitting quota and a host of other items. As a manager they would come to me and ask what they should do? My advice was always the same. Stop worrying about your quota, performance plan, and what others think about you. Are you happy? Are you making the income desired? Are you hitting your goals? If not… Why not?

10 Questions - Are You in Control of Your Sales Career Success?

Top sales performers don’t wait for a PIP (performance improvement plan) or otherwise to get motivated. They are in charge of their career. If they’re not hitting their own goals they’re making adjustments to do so proactively.

Let’s see if you’re in charge of your success.

1.) What do you do to further your career on your own without being told to?

2.) When you feel like things aren’t working out are you PRO-ACTIVE in looking for a new company or do you wait for the PIP?

3.) If you know the company you’re working for is having financial problems are you already looking for another company or are you waiting for the lay off?