Sales, Social and Tech

 have an open source competitor but I don't encounter them that much in Singapore market. If and when I do encounter prospects using this open source solution now, I tend to avoid them. The reason for avoiding them isn't because I am competing myself with free, but rather, I have found these prospect have invested, not just time, but money and resource to maintain this open source software. Let me explain. While the open source solution is free for download from the source website, maintaining the open source solution requires effort. Interestingly, I found that IT teams that use this open source solution, have a manpower or two hired assigned just to manage this open source solution. If these open source IT teams decided to use my paid solution, it would have meant that their investment, in terms of time and money, to get where their open source solution is today, have been a wrong decision from the start. Unless I am to talk to new a IT director who wants to revam...

There are 52 Mondays in 2017. We just had one Monday off for the New Year. Look at the Public Holidays in 2017 for Singapore below and guess how many more Mondays do you need to work? New Year’s Day 1 Jan 2017* Sunday Chinese New Year 28 Jan 2017 Saturday 29 Jan 2017* Sunday Good Friday 14 Apr 2017 Friday Labour Day 1 May 2017 Monday Vesak Day 10 May 2017 Wednesday   Hari Raya Puasa 25 Jun 2017* Sunday   National Day 9 Aug 2017 Wednesday   Hari Raya Haji 1 Sep 2017 Friday   Deepavali 18 Oct 2017 Wednesday   Christmas Day 25 Dec 2017 Monday For Public Holidays on a Sunday, you will have a official day off on the following Monday. This takes away 4 Mondays which will leave you with 48 Mondays for 2017. Assuming for holidays on Friday, you take leave on the following Monday and for holidays on Wednesday, you take leave on the Monday prior to the holiday, that is a total 5 Mondays to take away from. This leave you with 43 Mondays in 2017. Say you ...

There was a time whenever I heard the title sales and marketing, I would cringe a little. However, doing channel sales now, a little dash of marketing can do wonders to your sales funnel. If the end is closing the deal, then the starting point of the sales journey is get a lead. In a traditional setting, that lead generation portion is often left to the marketing team. In today's Internet social media world, the salesperson with that dash of marketing will outsell those who draw the line between sales and marketing. The American Marketing Association most recently defined marketing as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Isn't the salesperson the best to do tall these? Today the medium and distribution channel are almost free. You could easily start a blog in seconds, with Blogger, Wordpress or event start a new po...

I been listening to several sales podcasts recently and one of the common tips that they give is that you should make the phone call daily to touch base with your sales prospects. I have the additional task of building the company's partner base and calling partners on a regular basis is also part of parcel of getting them to help bring me more customers. Today, a phone call help closed a deal. Sounds easy yet behind the phone call was some hard work and creative thinking to get the deal. This deal was considered as one that is handed to me on a plate as it was a maintenance deal to be renewed. For maintenance deals, the customer have already been using the company's solution for at least a year so there isn't the challenge of having to do the whole introduction spill again. Getting the appointment to close the deal was, on the other hand, the toughest part. This was because the customer was quite busy and had a tight schedule for a meeting. There were times w...

In my first sales job, I had a sales leader whom many described as having the capability to sell ice to Eskimos.  I left that job because I found that what I was selling was not of any benefit to the potential customers especially if their jurisdiction was just Singapore. Now, I am in my second sales job and I am find myself better selling a refrigerator to Eskimos as opposed to just selling them ice. Selling refrigerators to Eskimos is almost akin to selling them a solution as opposed to selling ice - a product.  Refrigerators would be a good solution to Eskimos because given the current climate changes, you need to preserve and store food at a regulated temperature instead of depending on the unpredictable moods swings of Mother Nature. With a refrigerator, Eskimos get to keep some of their perishables frozen or if they choose, just at a cooler temperature but somehow higher than the freezing point. The refrigerator will allow Eskimos to drink chilled water r...

Sales is a number game and also about finding out what you customer want or need. If your customer had a want that leads to a home run, should you keep trying to hit it until you are strike out of the deal? Or should you aim to meet the need - a smaller sales number but a guaranteed hit to first base? I would go for the latter. Meeting a need is much more easier to convince to meet a want.  Plus it helps you get one foot in the door for later upsell that could help you achive a run.

If you are in the real estate business, then its all about Location! Location! Location!. If you are looking to start your public relations campaign, it is all about the objective. By having a clear objective in place before your start your PR campaign, it will help you guide your tactical activities from day 1. This include the style of your press release, your target audience, your goals to achieve, etc. On objective should be both measurable and specific. Examples of objectives are: 1. Increase the number of visits of your website to 10,000 in a month. 2. Increase the number of registered users to 50,000 in a month. 3. Increase sales leads from your PR campaign to SGD10,000 in a month. Let’s take example three as a sample objective for your PR campaign. Now that you know your objective is to increase sales leads, the tactical activities should be as follows: a. Press Release Your press release should have a strong focus on what you offer though the title of th...