Sell 'em in bunches like bananas

An old sales training axiom is "sell 'em in bunches like bananas," meaning it's smarter to sell many things at the same time than it is to sell them one at a time.

Apply that to the corporations that sell through sales channels. That's exactly what they're supposed to be doing--selling a bunch of tractors or cars or planes or boats or artificial hips in bunches through their dealers, reps or other channel partners.

Yet, only the smartest corporations get that. Many corporations view their sales channel as something less than a partner.

Right now, there are dealers that know how to sell products "in bunches like bananas," why not learn from them and help more dealers do the same? The best corporations will be doing that, the rest will be wondering where their market share went.


Barry LaBov
LaBov and Beyond
www.labov.com

The "nostalgia file"

In the great movie "Glengarry Glenross", one of the characters, a hard-edged salesman, was given a stack of 3X5 cards with customer names. The names and contact info were years old. The salesman looked at the stack and threw them out, calling them the "nostalgia file." He was right, the old names and contacts were of little-to-no value.

Today, there should never be a nostalgia file. Not with LinkedIn, Facebook and all the other technology that connect us.

I spoke with someone recently who told me he had a database of hundreds of contacts from a convention he went to a few years ago. I asked him if he had kept in touch with those contacts, and he said, "no." "Ahh, the nostalgia file," I thought.

I can understand why decades ago there were nostalgia files. Communication was tougher, there were no emails or LinkedIn, people often had no voicemail, even. Few people had cell phones.

But today, all we need to do is sit in front of a computer and tap on the keyboard and we've communicated something to someone. No excuse. No nostalgia files.

Barry LaBov
LaBov and Beyond
www.labov.com

How to spot a visionary

It's pretty impressive to say that someone is a visionary. All the great leaders have been called visionaries.

It's easy to spot a visionary today. Probably easier than it has been in a long time.

Today's visionary is taking advantage of the opportunities that the economy has presented. There are more opportunities laid in front of us today than in recent memory, but few people are doing anything about them. The ones that are will no doubt be rewarded.

There were more millionaires created during the great depression then at any other time in our history. The same will go for our great recession.

Look around--who is acquiring, who is growing their client base, who is developing new technology, who is buying that sponsorship that no one else wants?

We call those people visionaries.