Sales, Social and Tech

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...

As we come to the end of 2015, I thought it would be best to end it with my quotes in The Straits Times. Signing up for safer SingPass simplified; more streamlining expected, 22 December 2015 - Some SingPass users were pleasantly surprised by the change. Marketing manager Aaron Koh, 39, said: "The first step is so much faster now, involving fewer clicks." Streaming service with new set-top box may shake up Singapore TV market, 29 August 2015 - Marketing manager Aaron Koh, 39, said VPN services are already available on the Web for as little as US$50 (S$70) a year and can be used on any broadband connection. Consumers turning to telcos for phablets, 30 July 2015 Marketing manager Aaron Koh, 39, whose two-year mobile contract ends next May, said: "I'm holding out for the year-end launch of the new version of the iPhone 6, which will be more stable and offer better features." 1,000 free SIM cards for MyRepublic's mobile trial, 27 April 2015 - Mar...

MOS Teo said he didn't post the following quote on Facebook- "I learnt that some workers prefer to sleep without a mattress as they are used to it back in their home country". The above quote that appeared with the photo in the Ministry of Manpower Facebook Page came under heavy criticism for being insensitive to the plight of migrant workers in Singapore. It created that much furore to have the story appear on  BBC website . The Ministry of Manpower has issued a statement that the post and the caption was put up by an unnamed Facebook admin. The question of many, especially the government ministry, must be asking how to approve a post before it goes "live" on the Page. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't allow this function for any of the roles assigned for the Facebook Page. You could put a post on draft and get the other key stakeholders to sign off in the comments, but once you publish the draft post, the comments can be seen. With this...

Andrea Chong, a Adidas appointed influencer, posted a photo of herself in the middle of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2015 and captioned how she was "all smiles" during the run. Unfortunately for Andrea or the PR agency, one of her readers checked her bib number #75148  at the Marathon's website only to find it to belonging to somebody else. That somebody else is Kuvin Kuar , a intern at Edelman PR and the bib number had a status "DNF" or did not finished. This raised the first red flag as one of the rules stated that "A Participants is strictly not allowed to transfer his or her race entry to another party". This cascaded into perceptions that Andrea herself did not even start or complete the race and was only "planted" by Adidas or the PR agency, Edelman PR, to look pretty in the marathon. Marketing Magazine noted that Adidas declined to comment about the incident which lead to further speculation that Andrea was ...

Have you seen the new Notes on Facebook? Notes was part of Facebook to provide for longer updates, however, the old Facebook Notes was kind of boring and stale. Say goodbye to the old Facebook Notes The new Facebook Notes now allows you to add a cover photo, similar to Medium,  and even allows you to select Bold, Italics, Mono, and even add links just be simply highlighting the words and the option appears above the words. In comparison, the old Facebook Notes required you to know a little html that you have to enter before and after the text. So far, the new Facebook Notes only allows you to add photos, but hopefully, it could allow adding of videos and even let users put HTML for more advance users. Maybe Facebook should even allow users to add advertising in the post and earn from it, something similar to Google’s Adsense program. The new Facebook Notes will give the various online blogging publishers, eg Medium, Blogger, a run for the money. Google’s Blog...