2012-06-30 07:19
At first sight, one could question that there even is a trade-off between high revenue growth and forecast reliability by claiming that closing probabilities should be the same in both scena… Read More
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service providers
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satisfaction
entrepreneurial
partner levels
allocating
reliable forecast
channel management
customer loyalty
This blog focuses on issues in mainly high-tech sales. The articles are mostly based on field experience, sometimes inspired by leading-edge academic research from top-tier universities.
2012-04-29 17:44
What do I mean by this title? Isn’t Sales always entrepreneurial? How can it be static if I keep on winning customers? Well, what I mean is allocating territorial responsibilities to y… Read More
2012-02-18 12:38
Many people, sometimes even experienced sales guys think that trade shows are a great place to generate new leads and sometimes even to win customers. This myth is fed by the media headlines… Read More
2011-11-19 14:37
In the times of traditional software sales, the roles of supplier and customer were pretty clear. The vendor provided a solution; the customer obtained a solution. Nowadays with Cloud soluti… Read More
2011-09-18 08:07
In almost all high-tech start-ups (and actually also in most Fortune 500 companies), profit aggregation only happens at business unit or company level and not at customer level. Th… Read More
2011-07-24 18:34
Especially service providers invest a lot of money in customer loyalty programs, assuming that long-term customers are good for the company. Because of that myth, customer churn and customer… Read More
2011-06-19 18:36
Customer satisfaction is valued highly in almost every commercial organization. Especially large firms spend an enormous amount of money on customer satisfaction programs. Therefore, an impo… Read More
2011-05-23 20:23
As mentioned in Part I of this article, the two elements of an effective sales partner program beside the revenue commitment are: A plausible categorization of the partners into the various… Read More
2011-04-17 15:08
High-tech Sales is often direct but almost always also through partners. Especially for smaller accounts or customers, to which you don’t have easy access (e.g. because of the geograph… Read More
2011-03-13 21:32
In start-ups there is a constant fear by the top management that the prices might be too high and therefore not enough customers will buy. Along with this there is always a tendency to reduc… Read More
2011-02-13 21:18
Everyone in Sales (and probably everyone in business) has heard the truism that customer acquisition is three times more expensive than customer retention. That is such a high-level statemen… Read More
2010-11-14 14:05
Customers typically use reference prices when making purchase decisions. It is very hard, if not impossible, for anyone to assess the absolute value of a product, service or solution. Theref… Read More
2010-10-15 20:40
When you sell to a business customer, you don’t sell to a single decision maker but to a group of people, the so-called buying center. The buying center usually consists of all persons… Read More
2010-08-29 09:13
Sales Outsourcing is something many start-ups have heard of and might consider as an option. The decision is not as easy as it seems. As everyone knows, the general rule is to only outsource… Read More
2010-07-17 08:27
As mentioned in my very first post, the ways software is sold also has changed with SaaS and cloud computing. As some guys, like Oracle’s Larry Ellison for example, pointed out, delive… Read More
2010-07-03 07:44
We all heard it many times, “sales people should mainly be out there, on the road, with the customer”. Well, this might be true if you sell insurances for consumers or ice-cream… Read More
2010-06-19 08:19
After you have defined your pricing based on the value of your offering (see previous post on the topic), at some point you will think about changing prices. Unfortunately most start-ups com… Read More
2010-06-10 07:27
There was an interesting article yesterday in Harvard Business Review, stating that BP’s strong fall in popularity this year has been accelerated by their previous, multi-million dolla… Read More
2010-06-05 07:53
Sales success comes from many more factors than merely good sales people and an efficient sales process. To be successful in Sales, the entire go-to-market-approach and also After Sales must… Read More
2010-05-22 08:40
The stupidest question I ever got in a job interview came from a CEO (who is not CEO anymore but that might be for other reasons) asking me: “So, who do you know, who can you call tomo… Read More
2010-05-08 09:35
Multi-level selling means to most effectively address the various horizontal levels in your prospect’s organizational hierarchy. It is usually not related to the various parties o… Read More
2010-04-24 08:13
To find the right pricing for your products and services is one of the most difficult tasks. However, doing pricing carefully has a great influence on your revenue and even more so, on your… Read More
2010-04-10 11:41
As described in my previous post, the historical funnel development shows how the opportunities transit to the next sales stage. Therefore, how many opportunities make it to the next stage d… Read More
2010-03-27 18:09
In Sales, you are dealing with probabilities for closing deals. You will never win 100% of your prospects as customers. This is important to remember when it comes to sales forecasting. Ther… Read More
2010-03-12 20:15
When you talk about prospects, many differentiate between leads and opportunities. But what is actually the difference between them and why does it make sense to distinguish between leads an… Read More
2010-02-28 19:27
Branding is important for any company that deals with direct customers. A brand means trust. It reduces the uncertainties about your offering and helps customers to decide. A strong brand sh… Read More
2010-02-21 17:51
Some of the implications of recurring revenues for ISVs resulting from the SaaS model (see previous post) are the following: 1. You as an ISV don’t start at 0 revenues at the beginning… Read More
2010-02-19 13:41
…for end customers, service providers and the sales force of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). As most readers of this blog probably know, SaaS, often also referred to (in my opini… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Many people, sometimes even experienced sales guys think that trade shows are a great place to generate new leads and sometimes even to win customers. This myth is fed by the media headlines… Read More
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