Blog
Turn Your Customers Into Your Salespeople
Most people will tune out when you tell them how great your company is. The will even turn you off if you spend too much time talking about all of the great things your company can do for them. And they will practically throw you out of their office when you start to pull the dreaded Power Point presentation out […]
Seven Great Cold Calling Tips
Cold calling, we all hate it right? Is that you groaning that I hear, because I even dared to bring up the subject? Most of you love those articles titled “Cold Calling is Dead”, tearing them out of the magazines and bringing them to your boss saying. See, see, I told you so.” But sorry buddy, cold calling is not […]
Contract Manufacturers: Here Are 5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Get More Business
Everyone is struggling to fill their factories these days, as the fight for more business heats up. It used to be that contract manufacturers had a good solid base of good customers, they could depend on year after year. Many of them were satisfied to pick up a couple of customers a year as their base remained stable, But, all […]
Don’t Be A Howser
Back in the dark ages when I started in this business, management styles were, well shall we say, a bit different. As a young employee at Maine Electronics, a Rockwell International board house, primarily focused on Rockwell’s own products such as the Minuteman Missile program, the F-111 fighter, the B-1 Bomber and the Space Shuttle, delivery dates were critical, actually […]
Growing Salespeople From Within Your Company
We all know that finding and hiring good sales people has become a problem. There are just not that many good ones out there right now. They are either, retired, gone to work in other fields or like the old general himself just faded away. So what are you going to do? You need sales people. You need more feet […]
Five Things You Need To Know To Be A Successful Salesperson
As I travel around the country, I often get asked what makes a great sales person. People want to know what the secret is to being successful in sales. Some of them tell me that they think it is much more difficult to sell today than it has ever been. Others tell me about customers who won’t let them make […]
On Selling Contract Manufacturing Services
Contract manufacturing is a service not a product. As CEMs, we are actually building someone else’s product, someone else’s baby. Our customers are putting the fate of their companies in our hands. If we build the product incorrectly our customers will be the ones to pay. In the end they are the ones who have their name on the product. They are […]
Marty
Let me tell you about my good friend Marty Petersen. He was one of the most intriguing people I have ever met, and had the pleasure to work with. Marty was always all in whatever task he undertook. When I met him, he was handling the purchasing for us at Automated Systems, the PCB shop we both worked at just […]
Selling On Price Is How You Lose
If you prospect for price you are going to get price oriented customers. You are only going to “buy” your way into an account and yes, you are going to set the precedent for the life of that account. So says Mark Hunter in his great new book High-Profit Prospecting published by Amacom. And allow me to add, if you think that […]
Care About Your Customers And They Will Love You For Life
Years ago, when I lived in Milwaukee, there was a great, and wonderful airline by the name of Midwest Express. I loved that airline, it was the one airline that I was proud to be a frequent flyer on. To this day, I still have the leather travel wallet they gave out then you hit the hundred thousand mile mark. […]
