Primed for the Long Haul

We live on a beautiful lake that borders Georgia and South Carolina.  One of the many advantages to living on a lake is that we can irrigate our yard and my vegetable garden with the lake water.  This is not only a cheap source of water, but the lake water also provides valuable nutrients, which helps everything grow without having to use much in the way of fertilizers.  The only down side to using the lake water is keeping the pump and irrigation system running.  

Each winter I have to drain the system to make sure it was not damaged by freezing.  Last year, when I was starting the system back up, I forgot to prime the pump and as a result is was damaged. The motor that runs the pump was fine, but I either had to replace both pump and motor or try to rebuild the pump.  I decided the rebuild the pump and I used it all last summer and this year until a few weeks ago when I started having problems.  After much trouble shooting, I decided to replace the whole unit.  It is now working better than it ever has.

A few things come to mind in relating this experience to Sales and Salesnet.  In 2008 the Salesnet infrastructure was in need of being upgraded both from a hardware and operating software perspective.  The cheapest and easiest way to solve this issue would have been to upgrade the hardware and software on an as needed basis.  This would have been sort of like what I did by rebuilding the pump.  It would have worked for a while but we would have had to continue to upgrade the systems.  Instead we decide to totally replace every piece of hardware and software in both the primary and disaster recovery data centers.   This was a major capital investment but has been well worth the effort.  We are in a position now to grow by 10 fold without adding any hardware or software.  We have also dramatically increased the speed and security of Salesnet. 

In addition to upgrading the infrastructure, we also needed to start work on the user interface.   We took the same approach for this effort.  The New Salesnet is a complete rewrite of the user interface with copious amount of new features.  These two efforts have put Salesnet in a great position to leverage current technology and quickly roll out new features and functionality.

The last lesson in the pump story is about priming the pump.  The sales funnel needs to be full to insure the future success of any sales organization.  In the past, I have often consulted with companies that have a good year or quarter to be followed by a slowdown in sales.  Usually this happens because when things are going well, we forget to keep the sales funnel full.  It is not an easy task for the sales person to keep the sales funnel primed after having a good quarter or year.  This is because as they are busy trying to make sure everything is taken care of and that the customer is happy.  This is all very important, but continuing to prospect is a must in continued long-term success. 

Until next time,

Keep Your Sales Funnel Primed for Continued Success

Long Term Success

 A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I, went to see Carole King and James Taylor for their Troubadour Reunion 2010 concert.  I have always been a big fan of them both, but was worried after seeing some of the older performers, who have been guest on American Ideal.  I was suspicious about how well the 60+-year-old performers would do.

First, we started out by going to dinner at a nice place close to the concert.  We arrived early and soon the placed filled up with a lot of old people.  We wondered if these people were also going to the concert.  I suggested that these people were too old to be going to a concert.  Well I was wrong.  I think everyone in the restaurant was headed to see Carole and James as well.  I guess they couldn’t have been that old since they were probably all my age.

The main difference I noticed at this concert from what I remember from concerts in my youth was that they had concessions stands (even several cocktail stands) and that during the concert everyone stayed seated most of the time.  While the audience may have been a little old and mellow, Carole and James were absolutely wonderful.  James’s voice hasn’t changed a bit, and even though Carole’s voice wasn’t quite what it used to be, she made up for it with her vivid performance.  She is 67 years old and still moves like a 20 year old.  It was one of the best performances I have ever seen. 

Having both of them on the stage for the entire show and switching between his and her songs allowed for a good mix of different types of songs.  The story telling by both of them was also very entertaining and gave added depth.  I never knew that James Taylor was such a comedian.  They both made a couple of references to being older.  Carole King was talking about a song that she had written in the 60’s.  She said something like this “for those of you who remember the 60’s, but I guess if you are like us you don’t remember much about the 60’s, and well now it is welcome to the real 60’s”. 

James Taylor talked about the set they played for the original Troubadour Concert.  He said they tried and tried to remember the set but couldn’t.  As we get older, like King and Taylor, our memory seems to go.  It is also a fact that as stress increases or we get busier our memory is not as good.  We live in a stressful world and if you are in sales your stress levels are constantly at a high level.  Being able to remember your client’s name, what you last discussed with them, details about their business and even their personal life are very important for sales people.  Even if you aren’t older like me, you still need to have something to help you remember all the details and keep you on track.  Salesnet is designed to not only track all the details and conversations; it also reminds you when the next steps are due.  Without Salesnet, I would have things dropping through the cracks all the time.  Salesnet is my sales memory and sales driver.

 Another thing that comes to mind when thinking about Carole King and James Taylor is why they have been successful since the 60’s, and why the current tour is so successful.  The key is, in my opinion, that they provide a valuable product and that they have stayed true to who they are.  The two of them are a great team and really like working together.  They and the rest of the band also worked together flawlessly.  Aren’t all these keys to success in sales?  You have to have a good product or service to sell or you won’t be successful for long.  You must be honest, real and true to yourself and your customer.  For most sales people being successful requires that they have a good team to support their efforts.  This includes your sales manager and all the people who support you, including your family.

Until next week,

Good Selling




Superb Poster courtesy of DKNG Studios Los Angeles, California

The Glass is Full

My last two blogs have been about my trip to New Orleans.  This will be the third and final blog about this experience.  As I said in the last two blogs, my wife and I had a trip planned to New Orleans for our anniversary.  As it turned out our youngest daughter went with us so she could interview with a company in New Orleans.

I’m sure everyone wants to know how the interview turned out.  First, let’s go back to a blog from a few weeks ago where I talked about a speech at her graduation. The keynote speaker was very negative about the job market and advised the graduates to go and do social work, travel across Europe, take up yoga or origami, and to not worry about getting a job.  I suggested that this was a “the glass is half empty” view of the job market.

Luckily my daughter didn’t take this view.  She picked out several companies she would like to work for and sent resumes to these companies.  She had two callbacks from this effort, and one was the job in New Orleans.  As it turns out she has now accepted the job and is moving to New Orleans next week.  I am proud of her for taking the half full approach.

OK, so what is the sales message of the week?  Well it isn’t about her getting the job (even though I could use that).  I want to focus on the fact that I planned a romantic trip to New Orleans that didn’t go the way I planned it.  Sometimes we make the best of plans, but they are spoiled.  We have a choice to go with the punches and make the best of it or we can just give up and let it get the best of us.  In sales things rarely go as you plan and many times it is your reaction to these setbacks that creates the differentiation between you and your competition.  You should look at these setbacks as opportunities to excel.

My trip didn’t go as planned, but as it turned out it was much better than I could have ever imagined.  I spent time with a great sales person and got a multitude of ideas about how to improve the Salesnet business. I spent quality time with my wife and youngest daughter. My daughter got her dream job.  How can it get any better that that?  Oh yeah, I also got my last child off the payroll.

Until next week,

Good selling and make sure you go with the punches; you never know what good things are just around the corner.

Hidden charges

As I said in my blog last week, my wife and I had a trip planned to New Orleans for our anniversary. Our youngest daughter went with us so that she could interview with a company in New Orleans. As it turned out this trip gave me several ideas for blogs, so this is part II of the New Orleans trip.


I had a nice room reserved in an old house turned hotel. It was a nice place with one catch. The room I reserved only had one bed and they didn’t have any other rooms. As you can imagine, this presented a problem as no one was willing to sleep on the floor. So I made arrangements for a room for 3 people in another hotel that was an old warehouse turned into a hotel. This hotel was supposed to be a step up from the other hotel and of course the cost was doubled.

We arrived at the hotel to find that our room was on the second floor. We had to take an elevator to this floor and then walk down a flight of stairs. The room was nice but it had old wooden floors that made a lot of noise when you walked on them and they were extremely slick. The floors made so much noise that you could hear every step made by the people in the next room. It was so noisy that if anyone moved on one of the beds the floor noise would wake everyone in the room.

We overlooked these issues and had a great time but there was something else about the hotel that really annoyed me. The room had a costly amenities package that included breakfast and internet. This package wasn’t optional. In the other hotel these were included. As it turned out the breakfast was coffee and a cinnamon roll. One of the big features of the other hotel was the full breakfast and great service for this breakfast. The other charge, above and beyond, was parking for $30 per night which was included in the other hotel. Not to mention that this was valet parking so you have to tip the guy every time he goes to get the car for you.

All of this got me to thinking about how people price their CRM packages today. Most CRM companies have several levels of their product that start with a very low price without a lot of functionality. If you want more functionality you pay more. Many also charge for things like disk space and such. At Salesnet we made a conscious decision to provide the Salesnet product with all the functionality so that our customer would have no hidden charges. I wish our hotel had taken this approach. On my next trip to New Orleans we will stay at the hotel without the hidden charges. I hope that when you make your CRM choice you will choose the CRM product with no hidden charges “Salesnet”.

Until next week,

Good Selling

Having a Sales Mentor

This weekend was my 28th wedding anniversary. Several months ago I planned a romantic trip to New Orleans to celebrate. A few days before our departure my youngest daughter who just graduated from college came to us and said that she had a possible job offer in New Orleans and had set up her final interview during the time my wife and I were going to be in New Orleans. So guess what, she joined us for our romantic weekend. I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I was happy to be able to spend the extra time with my daughter but so much for romance.

As it turned out some really good things came out of this trip. First, we decided to stop in Mobile, Alabama and spend a night with a very good friend who just happens to have been my sales mentor. I met Jerry over 27 years ago and at that time he was one of the top sales people in the company I was working for. He is the best relationship sales person I have ever met and a true southern gentleman. In fact many times I have heard people say that when you look up southern gentleman in the dictionary, you will see a picture of Jerry. We had a great reunion and talked for several hours about business and sales in general. Jerry had a lot of good ideas about how to improve the market presence of Salesnet. This alone was worth the trip.

Second, visiting with Jerry got me to thinking about the importance of the sales relationship and how that has changed in the last 10 years. While people might say that today the relationship is not as important as it use to be, I would say that people still buy from people. I would agree that it is harder to develop the relationship. For one thing, more and more sales are done over the phone. In the Salesnet business almost all of our sales are done via the phone. In fact even the demos, projects, and training are normally done via web meetings. With this in mind, the challenge is to develop the relationship without ever meeting the customer face to face.

While all the things you do to develop a relationship still apply, except of course for the hand shaking and body language stuff, they are just harder to accomplish. This means that everything you do over the phone and off the phone in preparing for your meeting becomes much more important. Strategy, tactics, persistence, punctuality, honesty, attention to detail and all the other stuff are exponentially more important.

It's definitely something to consider when you are developing your sales strategy. Send your sales mentor stories to blog@salesnet.com and you could be featured in the next Salesnet CRM blog post!

While there is much more about this trip that I want to talk about it will have to wait until next week.

Good Selling.