This morning I had an urgent need to purchase a pair of shoes for work. I arrived at work (cycle commute) and for the first time in 3 years I had no shoes! I chose Myer in Brisbane CBD because I already had a gift voucher left over from Christmas. When I had chosen [...]
My son (9), daughter (6) and I love to reward ourselves at the end of a Saturday morning Park Run with ice cream from McDonalds. There are 2 McDonalds locations close to our house. One is amazing. I love to watch their staff work quickly and efficiently to provide good food and customer service! The [...]
As a parent I often ask my six year old son if he has cleaned his teeth. Sometimes he's inclined to mislead me by saying, "hmmm....yes..?". With a big smile I like to remind him that Mummy and Daddy have Superpowers! We can tell when he's not telling the truth. He's not 100% sure about [...]
We have all met someone that has a force-field of contempt towards all other humans. They could be internal or external to our organisation. Similar to the character, Alice in Dilbert.com. Over my career I have seen many "Alices" across technical, accounting, finance and legal roles. When you ask for their help, you [...]
While completing my undergraduate degree in the late 1990's, I took up a door-to-door commission-sales job that was run by my surfer-entrepreneur housemate. His business offered a service to reduce the chance of someone's car being stolen by etching the registration number on each of the glass window panels of the car. This reduced the [...]
If you are a student of politics then you would be familiar with Niccolo Machiavelli's book, The Prince. It's one of the best books on diplomacy and avoiding "rookie" political mistakes. In managing long sales cycles you should consider what strategy will help you keep the lines of communication open during the quiet periods. Every [...]
While selling into large organisations, have you ever wondered if the person you are dealing with is wasting your time? You keep calling them and they are willing to speak and meet with you. So it must be going somewhere right? And here is my typical MBA-learnt response: It depends! A prospect can be wasting your [...]
"As a technical consultant-turned-entrepreneur, how can I successfully hire and on-board sales staff to grow my start-up ?" This question was recently posed to me by a start-up CEO, with a strong IT technical/consulting background who is seeking to grow his business by employing a sales person. If you are a sole operator, then consulting and selling is [...]
As a start-up CEO, how do you get past gatekeepers to meet with senior decision makers? You first need to understand the job of a personal assistant for a senior executive: Their job is to help their boss make the best use of his or her time. This means keeping people like you away from [...]
I'm 39 years old and have been selling software to government and enterprise for over 12 years. Here is my LinkedIn profile. During this time I've managed to successfully launch 4 new "start-up" products while working for large organisations. These products are now turning over $1m in revenue. In all but one I have [...]
