CRM. Customer Relationship Management. It allows us to store customer and prospect contact information, accounts, leads, and sales opportunities in one central location. The technology has exploded and for an industry that really is less than 3 decades old, the market is worth approximately $36 billion. Overall, the top five CRM software vendors account for [...]
Are you credible? What sort of question is that? Of course I am. I have to be. And even if I’m not, why is this so important? What do we mean by being credible? One dictionary definition is: “Having credibility means you are believable and reliable.”Here’s another one from a long time friend and past colleague, [...]
How do we make sure we don’t lose the customers we can’t afford to lose?The Top 10 to 20 accounts of any B2B organization typically represent 60-80% of revenue and profit. In some cases, they are as high as 95%. The consequences of losing one of these customers are dramatic, and in today's business environment, [...]
I've been seeing quite a few references to the term Trusted Advisors recently, and I've been talking to people about what they think it really means. The term seems to be applied more often than not to the field of consulting. However, I would suggest a Trusted Advisor is something we should all aspire to, [...]
A few articles ago I wrote about the importance of listening to help develop better relationships. Careful listening leads to better understanding of our customers, and in my last article I posed the question “What Is The client’s Notions And Why Should I Care?” Both of these approaches are largely predicated on the fact that [...]
How do we develop a strategic customer relationship? What are some of the things that we need to do? Experience has taught me that to be successful it starts with understanding what your customer wants. So many times I’ve observed people that go to see customers and all they’re interested in is getting the customer to [...]
I was meeting with a very successful sales consultancy company last week and we were discussing the kind of typical problems they come across working with their clients.They described a few of situations they had faced and we spent some time talking about ways to overcome them and what advice they provided. Copyright: mackoflower / [...]
A few weeks ago I was the lead speaker in a workshop entitled “Landing More Sales”. While I was preparing the inevitable PowerPoint deck to support my talk, I was struggling to find the right visual to portray difficulties that can arise with dealing with customer relationships.I don’t know whether you are like me or [...]
"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages." - Henry Ford.Hmm! Well in a way, I agree with this statement, as long as it gets everyone focused on the fact that without customers, you're not in business and don't have a job! [...]
Meetings are events in which I have spent numerous hours sitting in and many more hours discussing and blogging about as I believe they are one of the primary areas where we can save so much time and be so much more productive. As James T. Kirk once said, "A meeting is an event where [...]