The iTunes Store's newest app, Ninety Five 5 Sales Flashcards, debuted today in a bid to help sales professionals master key conversation responses to commonly asked questions. The app is free and can be downloaded here.Why should you download this app? Because success in sales (as with most things in life) is determined by practicing a deliberate, repeatable set of skills – over and over – until mastery is attained. Practicing key conversation responses helps […]

Sales is from Mars; Marketing is from Venus.  And all too often, the marriage between these two disciplines is strained, dysfunctional and downright costly.  Marketing wages an air war and Sales fights the ground war – but are often miles apart in their targets and execution.Most marketing professionals have never been in sales ("never carried a bag") and are often operating at the 20,000-foot level. They busy themselves with creating a new brand b […]

A recent experience showed me that online social networking and traditional networking aren’t mutually exclusive but are complementary to each other. Together they can create richer relationships and more opportunities to meet new people than one alone. This might be obvious to you already but experiencing it first hand was quite interesting for me.I joined a LinkedIn group for Toronto Sales Professionals. It is basically a network of people in the Toronto (Canada) area inter […]

I talk with a lot of people who practice getting better at things they enjoy doing.On a nice sunny day, driving ranges and putting greens are filled with people practicing their game.  Many executives have golf clubs at their office so they keep their skills sharp. What would it take for salespeople to decide to dedicate themselves to practicing their sales skills with such diligence?Sometimes we need to see things differently to understand what we need to do to get better […]

Today I'd like to share news of some smart software called "Camtasia Studio." If you've never heard of it, it turns screen recordings into polished videos that train, teach, sell and more. What is it exactly?Screen capture software allows users to take a snapshot of a computer screen at any one point in time. Screencast software, on the other hand, let's us record whatever appears on the screen over a given period of time and turn it into a video. What's […]

Is it really a funnel that we are "Filling"… or should we change the way we think?I am sure you have heard it before and yes I will mention it again: Paradigms drive results!The way that we think causes us to choose the way that we behave and the choices that we make.  The choices that we make and the way we behave influence the results that we achieve.Paradigms drive results!This is a fundamental principle in human behavior AND it applies to everything&am […]

As a former journalist, I love to meet and interview people from all over the world. I met today's guest a couple of years ago when I was launching an online community for Cadence Design Systems. Ron Ploof interviewed me then, and I thought this would be an ideal time to return the favor. Ron’s company, OC New Media, LLC, helps companies adopt New Media technologies. A true Sales 2.0 guru, he’s sold over $30 million in professional services, managed both team […]

Jigsaw. Heard of it yet? I like to call it my "little black book," but it's hardly small. With a dedicated user base of over 1 million, Jigsaw now has over 22 million business contacts. It currently adds about 36,000 contacts per day and is overwhelmingly the cleanest contact data set out there. Founded on a belief that professional salespeople would be willing to give in order to get, they have found a magic formula that has become so compelling that salesforce.com bo […]

I'm not selling it, but I'm a fan. It's called "YawnBuster" and it keeps people awake during PowerPoint presentations. YawnBuster is actually a software "plug-in" for PowerPoint that allows you to poll audiences and instantly display results during a presentation. Great for salespeople, it will allow you to enhance participation. For example, you can create activities around show of hands, brainstorm, and key takeaways. There is a new additional add-o […]

Of all the trends happening in social media today, the trend to use Facebook as a tool for business seems to have one of the slower uptakes.Almost everyone, well, probably not literally, but at least figuratively, is using LinkedIn and more and more are Tweeting, but using Facebook for business, well let’s just say it feels too personal for some of us.And therein lays the dilemma.  Doesn’t my Facebook account have too many connections to my personal life to […]