I come bearing good news. From everything I have heard, one of the hardest things for a salesperson to do these days is make appointments. We have talked about this often in this column, so many times in fact that I have made it my business to try to find a solution to this problem. It used to be that […]

Selling high technology is not always an easy thing for sales people. First, there is a credibility issue, when people see the word “sales” on your business card you can lose credibility. Listen, you could have been a director of engineering in your previous position before moving into sales; you could have been a full-blown technology guru but the minute […]

Last week we talked about following up on those valuable leads to make sure that we turn them into gold. Everything was about making that first contact and getting that first face-to-face meeting with the target customer.  Getting that first meeting is a huge and important step towards turning those leads into gold, but now the real mining begins. This […]

Companies spend a lot of money getting their sales team leads. They buy directories, they use social media, they go to trade shows, they spend a lot of money on trades shows and other marketing and some of them, the smart ones write a PCB Designers’ Guide book with I-Connect 007. These are all really great methods leads, (especially the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]