By Kristin Zhivago on Aug 8, 2008
I don't do this very often, because I always have an abundance of original content, but, in conventional blogger style, today I'm going to refer you to two other articles.
Actually, I wrote one of them, so perhaps my resort-to-convention post only applies to one of the articles - a great post in Ray Wang's blog, "Software Insider's Point of View," posted by John Ragsdale, VP of Research for SSPA, formerly of Forrester.
In John's article, "Reality Check: Sales reps matter more than product," he says:
"I don't think developers and marketers at high-tech companies have any idea how many deals they are losing, based on the personality of the sales rep." [More]
Amen. John's post was such a confirmation of everything I find in my research and consulting, that I immediately sent it to all my other clients after receiving it from one of our new clients (thanks, Tony!).
The second link today is to an article I wrote recently for MarketingProfs. Roy Young, the CEO of MarketingProfs, asked me to write an article about using incentives. The result, after a conversation with Mac McIntosh - who is a walking encyclopedia of sales lead knowledge, strategies, and tactics - is "Incentives: 5 Cardinal Rules, 10 Great Ideas," which starts:
When the economy gets tight, customers can take forever to make a buying decision. So, managers start spending conference room time trying to think up incentives that will encourage the customer to buy.
Any incentive will cost the company something, so make sure that whatever incentive you use actually causes prospective customers to take the next step in their buying process. [More]
I was pleased to write the article, because companies waste a lot of money on incentives that don't work. The whole point of an incentive is to make money for the company, not just add to the deficit side of the balance sheet.
OK, there you have it, a true blog-style entry. Of course, I can't wait to write next week's article, called "Extra! Extra!" - but you'll have to wait until next week to "read all about it."
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