CRMNow is not a sponsor of this event, however we see it as a great opportunity for our prospects and customers to attend. From the CeBIT website, the following provides an outline of the 3 day event:

• Three days of discovery …
• The peak event for business productivity
• Produced by the world’s largest event company, Deutsche Messe Worldwide.

All under one roof, you will find:

• 450+ business technology exhibitors
• Seven specialist business conferences Australia’s largest ever Cloud event Australia’s largest ever Big Data event Australia’s largest Public Sector ICT event

PLUS

• 3,000+ technology experts on the showfloor
• Hundreds of theatrette presentations
• Hands-on digital marketing and eCommerce workshops

SOURCE: CeBIT 2013 Website.

• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Watch the video below as Mark Hurd – Global Chairman, talks about Oracle’s cloud services with SkyNews Business.

SOURCE: YouTube

Let us know what you learnt.

“Tech start-ups have the potential to contribute $109 billion to the Australian economy, or around 4% of GDP, by 2033, according to a new report, which identifies four key ways to unlock the potential of the sector.”*

Is your business in a position to serve this growing sector? The team at CRMNow see some obvious synergies between what we do and the needs of startup organisations. The cloud offers a nimble, quick and secure way to begin with the enterprise in mind.

The management of contacts and relationships, critical to any startup, can be easily  addressed through the CRM cloud offerings from Oracle or salesforce.com. The cloud also offers startups a technology roadmap to match their growth plans. They can start with as little as couple of users and grow to hundreds and potentially thousands of users as their startup grows.

In addition, there’s no investment in hardware i.e. servers etc. All data is backed up and all interactions, activities etc can be managed within the CRM.

What about your business? How can you support this growing market? Click Here to read the report from PwC Australia. The only place I could find the actual report was on PwC Australia’s Facebook page. You may need to scroll down to find it. If you can’t find it on their page, simply create a post and ask for ‘The Startup Economy’ a look at the AU scene prepared for Google.

*SOURCE: Start Up Smart.com.au

Following the news that Samsung has been posting anonymous comments slamming rival HTC, is it time to introduce social media regulation?*

Having spent today with Oracle in Singapore attending Social Relationship Management training, this story caught my eye. Regulation will stifle what is magical about social media. The insight organisations can garnish from people’s messages and interactions is invaluable.

*SOURCE: MyCustomer.com

Mobile marketing is a common strategy in today’s business world as it is an effective way to touch on the vast number of mobile users. One of the beauties of pin-pointing mobile users is that they have access around the clock.

It’s not unusual for marketers to force feed product news and updates to consumers in order to get them to buy. I think they’re missing the point though. Customer experience allows you to build relationships with consumers and, as we know, this allows us to better sell to our market.

I found a great article from Mobile Advertising Hub titled “Mobile Marketing: One-Night Stand or Long-Term Relationship?” which talks to the above point:

As is so often the case, in a new and fast-growing market, there are many advertisers who are taking a short-term, fly-by-night approach to mobile marketing. Specifically, too many companies are focusing on the simplest, superficial interactions with customers. They’re trying to get customers to click a link or watch an ad on their mobile devices. And if a customer doesn’t want to “buy now” they simply don’t count. These companies are taking a “one-night stand” approach to getting a short, superficial interaction with customers, instead of building a “long-term relationship” based on committed, higher-value interactions over time.

The article suggests that marketers are better off taking time to understand the buyer’s journey and use mobile marketing techniques at every stage. Ensure that the use of mobile can be used throughout the entire process. The article provides answers to the following:

• How can you use mobile marketing to encourage trial?
• What will customers purchase on their mobile and when?
• How can you get your customers to opt-in to a longer relationship in social media?
• Can you use mobile to improve the post-purchase experience?
• Can you be more targeted in your approach?

Engaging with customers has also become easier with the development of apps. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Viber, Whatsapp etc are all free apps that allow organisations to communicate with customers the way they want to be engaged with.

For more information on social engagement using mobile, Click Here.

What Most people seem to enjoy though, is having access to their social networks on the run. I have access to both my personal and work Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts wherever I am on my smartphone and iPad.

I believe that social media organisations have done a stellar job of creating these apps that provide the exact functionality and access you can get from your desktop. I often speak to people who only use their smartphones to access their social accounts.

A fantastic report I often reference from ExactTarget is the “Digital Down Under Report #15” which states that 27% of Australians check Facebook as the last thing they do online in a typical day. A quote also states:

“At night I am a lot more active on the internet, as I can use it of my own free will (unlike at work). I spend time researching, shopping, socialising, etc.” – Tali, age 26

If you haven’t downloaded social apps on your iPhone, Blackberry or Android, go ahead and do so, because you can stay connected with your peers, family, customers and prospects around the clock.

What is next depends on you. If you put in the effort and focus you will become a better salesperson. A good professional salesperson is always employable. You need to be flexible, adaptable and open to change; I have sold six different types of products and solutions in my thirty one years of selling even though I have always remained in the High Tech sector. A good professional salesperson can either stay employed in sales for his entire career or can take his career into related areas. I chose the path of Sales / Sales Manager / Sales Director / Regional VP / Business Owner. You can envisage your own path, the only certainty is that your sales knowledge will be useful whatever choices you make because at their core they make you a better communicator and more realistic; truly transferable skills.

I wish all my readers the best.

Good luck with your career and let me know how it goes by dropping me an email at Clive.Smith@crmnow.asia.

My personal agenda is that I will follow up this book with books on:-

• Sales Management
• CRM
• Personal Productivity

If you get value from this book, look for my next one due end of Q1 2011.

Good Selling!!!

The first resource you should look at is your company. It is in the company’s interest to develop your productivity as fast as possible and sales training has to be a part of that. As a minimum you should expect one training course that gives you professional development once a year. A new sales professional should expect an induction and introduction to selling course. A more experienced professional should expect an advanced course (SPIN, Needs Based or Solution Selling, Major Account Development) again at least once a year.

Another easily available resource is your local bookshop or library. The topics of interest are to be found in Self Help, Motivational, and Business as well as Sales Training. I have often found that books are not good value in terms of ideas per book. This is particularly true of business books which tend to pad out a few ideas with hundred of pages of examples or stories or quotations that illustrate the idea in action. I sincerely hope you feel that this eBook is good value in terms of ideas per page!

Nowadays the best resource available to anybody is the Internet. If you enter as a Google search term any of the chapter or section titles you will get thousands of hits. One of the reasons I structured this book this way is that you can get specific help reasonably easily, but I have never seen a book that provides a framework for future research. What I hope this eBook does is give you an end to end understanding of what it takes to Develop Yourself As a Sales Professional. You can deep dive on topics as you need, or as you become interested.

For You – Effectiveness

There is one area that is of key importance to a salesperson that I have not addressed in this eBook and that is self organization and personal productivity.

I cannot stress enough that all the professional skills in the world will fail if you cannot execute at the level of turning up on time, being prepared, having done your assignment (prepare proposal / presentation).

If this eBook is well received I will write a companion book with the working title of “Effectiveness for Salespeople”. In the mean time – look through the Self Help shelves of your local bookshop.

The basics are simple:

Have a Purpose

Have a reason that you are doing this. For most people this starts out as a survival issue, I need a job to pay the rent and support myself, but in the long run you need to get higher up the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Once most people have risen above the survival layer, the most powerful motivators are becoming first competent and then good at their chosen career path. Wherever you are today, you need to realize that unless you can get to a point where your progress as a sales professional raises your self esteem within some twelve months of starting out as a salesperson, you should review whether you are doing something that you should spend the rest of your working career doing. For most people the next level of motivation is to have control over their work, rather than being controlled by their work. The assembly line worker is a slave to the line. He has to perform the task he is assigned as often as the line requires for as long as he is on the line. The salesman, once he has achieved a level of competence is far more independent. He should be out of the office frequently (I have never managed to persuade 8-10 customers per week to come to my office; you have to go to his.) Further a salesperson is fundamentally judged on what he delivers, not his activity. If you are 120% of annual quota and it is a nice day, go play golf. As a sales manager I never objected.

Have a Plan

Set yourself clear, quantifiable objectives and give yourself a deadline. It may initially be “make a minimum of eight face to face every week in February” or later it may be “save a million dollars from saving and investment over the next five years”. I do not mean “get better, some time soon”. String several objectives together that are clear, quantifiable and timebound and you have a plan. Write the plan down. Read it every week (or day). There was a long term study of Harvard Business School Graduates that tried to identify success drivers. The only thing that correlated with life success was that the successful graduates had a written plan. Keeping your commitments to yourself also builds confidence and self esteem, themselves contributors to your success.

Have a Lifestyle that allows you to be Productive

I am sorry if this advice is new information to you, but being a sales professional is too competitive and too challenging for you to spend all night on sex, and drugs, and rock and roll. The young and the strong may be able to fit one or two days of this at the weekend, but I have rarely seen a great salesman who did not consistently put in 9 hours a day, and nine hours that overlapped with the 9 To 5 hours that executives work. The high impact work that a salesperson does, meetings and presentations, are done face to face and you have to look healthy and full of energy.

Plan Your Time on a Weekly Basis

Depending on your role & responsibilities (new business, major account management) and the size of your territory the time allocation may vary, but you can assume that you need:-

• Business Development time – 20%
• Opportunity Management Time – 40% (meetings / proposal and correspondence)
• Administration & Review Time with Manager – 20%
• Reactive Time – “Events” will happen you need time allocated to deal with them

So which day (or which two half days) will you set aside to do your telephone calls; when are you going to write that proposal; when will you do the 8-10 calls a week with customers?

If you do not plan your week it will just pass and none of your objectives will be achieved.

Set Yourself Performance Targets

Service Level Agreements – make sure you set yourself standards to live up to. All emails read within 24 hours. All phone calls returned within two hours. Work them out for yourself and ask your customers if your responsiveness is good / average / bad compared to your competitors and adjust to the feedback you receive. I personally find it unacceptable to go home Friday with a major piece of work not done. I would much rather work until 10:00pm on Wednesday or Thursday than go home on Friday with work hanging over me. (I have a poor track record of working at the weekend). Get to know your work patterns (like you cannot work at the weekends and can work late week days) and adjust your workplan accordingly.