SalesLab's community of marketing & sales professionals

Congrats!

Hi Christian

Congratulations to you and your partners on your recent ventures.

~Alba

Anmar Alani joined SalesLab

I am very pleased to announce that Anmar Alani has joined SalesLab as a Partner, initially focussing on the UK and Middle East markets.

Anmar was Autodesk’s EMEA Marketing Director leading up to this appointment. Prior to that he worked for 14 years at Microsoft, holding a variety of senior sales and marketing positions. In his last one he was Director of Microsoft’s worldwide general manager community.

Anmar has grown businesses and led teams across very diverse markets and cultures, in Australia & New Zealand, Asia, Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, Russia, Japan and the USA. Anmar was born and raised in Iraq, before completing his studies in the UK.

Anmar has got the authority, expertise and empathy required in order to help SalesLab’s clients increase the productivity of their sales & marketing organizations, an imperative during current crisis!

For more information regarding:
-       SalesLab: www.saleslab.info
-       Anmar Alani: http://www.linkedin.com/in/anmaralani
-       SalesLab’s international community of 7,000+ sales & marketing professionals: http://www.saleslab.info/linked-in

April 1st, SalesLab Paris, New York, Singapore

I’m delighted to announce that SalesLab (www.saleslab.info) just acquired LinkedIn. The transaction price was not revealed as the SEC and the European Commission still have to approve the deal.

LinkedIn will become the technological foundation for SalesLab new online platform for their worldwide community of marketing and sales professionals.

SalesLab is also having advanced discussions with Bain & Company. In the likely partnership SalesLab will become Bain & Company’s arm to transform the way international firms market and sell their products.

Christian Bernard, the founder and SalesLab’s initial Partners and Advisers became instant Billionaires and all went to Jamaica in order to buy this special grass which keeps them dreaming despite their great age.

Innovative technology protecting us from stupid talks!

I couldn' resist from publishing this article despite the fact that it is written in French! Sorry for non French reading members. 

April the 1st is a special day in France (Fool's day?) when people pretend false things (as jokes) before discarding them by the end of the day. I don't know how international that is? 

Besides being funny, the article below is a nice way to draw attention to its writers, and the internet will turn it into a buzz. 

To them a big thank you for a fun moment in all the gloom around! 

Have fun, Christian

PORT défie la crise avec Le PORTparole

Publié le 01 Avril 2009

« Personne n'a trouvé le moyen de filtrer les paroles des imbéciles heureux qui évoluent dans notre business en ne gardant que l'énergie positive et en détruisant les vociférations inutiles afin de se concentrer sur le business, PORT va le créer » annonce Stéphane Tripot, le Directeur Général de la société.

Lors du dernier comité produit de PORT Europe, après deux heures de brainstorming sur l'innovation en temps de crise, une idée qui allait changer le monde des technologies a surgi. Elle émane d'une réflexion entamée, il y 6 ans, après les nombreuses remarques glanées sur le marché.

LE PORTparole®, une technologie PORTnawakinside  intégrée

 

 

Roissy, le 4 Octobre 2008, 6h30, Stéphane et Laurent Blancquart décollent pour Boston. Le rendez-vous a été pris la veille tard le soir, au MIT, avec le Professeur Alexander Voiceman, un spécialiste de l'intelligence artificielle, qui dirige le laboratoire d'expérimentation vocale appliqué aux études du comportement des playmobils en milieu semi-hostile. C'est là que va naitre, l'un des projets les plus fous de la décennie, une prouesse technologique sans commune mesure, une transfiguration de l'approche instinctive du bipède contrôlée et filtrée par une recherche fondamentale appliquée.

Six mois ont passé, le PORTparole®est annoncé pour le 1^er Avril 2009. L'équipe des 127 ingénieurs du Professeur Voiceman, a finalement mis au point le processeur PORTnawakinside, le moyen de pouvoir filtrer les paroles de chaque individu, pour dissocier les mots que l'on ne souhaite pas entendre et ne faire passer au travers du PORTparole®, que les mots acceptables ou ceux que l'on souhaite entendre.

« Nous sommes bien conscient qu'après la PORTinette® et le PORTavion® cette innovation va propulser notre entreprise parmi les leaders incontestés des technologies FPCI,  de filtres à paroles confuses et inadaptées. » déclare S.TRIPOT.

 

Le PORTparole® a été conçu dans la plus pure tradition des produits PORT, structure extérieure en nylon balistique haute résistance 1680D, intégration à chaud du module PORTnawakinside  en chambre blanche, à décompression contrôlée. Près de 122 tailles d'oreilles ont été testées, grâce à l'intervention de R.Hossein, expert national Audika.

On avancerait, de source bien informée, un prix de lancement de 39,90 € TTC mais la PME française n'a pas encore confirmé. Cependant il est sur que pour la promotion du PORTparole®, il y aurait déjà des contacts bien avancés avec des personnalités comme le publicitaire J.Séguéla, mais aussi quelques leaders politiques ainsi des personalités du show-business, qui auraient déjà passé des précommandes de 12 pièces pour leurs 12 prochaines déclarations, il semblerait aussi que les esprits s'échauffent au sein des députés, l'assemblée nationale envisageant un équipement obligatoire pour l'ensemble des forces politiques en présence avant tout discours...

L'équipe de PORT n'a pas fini d'apporter chaque année son lot d'innovations, qui marqueront l'histoire des artisans maroquiniers français, de père en fils, mais surtout nous permettront, un jour, d'entrevoir l'avenir plus sereinement... Bonnes fêtes de Pâques.

Anti-Crisis behaviour and process?

I would like to exchange ideas about "THE CRISIS" and its consequences.

• Do you really think anti-crisis behaviours can exist?
• Or do you think that better than to fight again crisis, crisis could be turned into an opportunities tank, provided that you fit the right behaviours and process with the market new parameters? 
• What will be the main business consequences of the crisis related to sales and marketing?
  1. Less investment or less risky investment?
  2. Bigger focus on Cost reduction? (is that not the case already?)
  3. ROI expected to be sooner?
  4. More focus on margin/profit than on market coverage and market penetration?

Is all that really new and born with THE crisis?

In my opinion, the drastic consequence will be that the gap between "good" and "not so good" sales organizations will dramatically widen.
The "not so good" are those who moan about the inefficiency of the anti-crisis weapons.
The "good" won't try to fight for an already lost battle but will shape their organization(behaviour and process) in order to face the new opportunities carried by the crisis. 

The secret to successful sales

Dear all,

If there is a secret, I would not reveal I guess, but the key to doing business with any company, is acknowledge that there is a ' favour factor' .

If people do like your style and reputation and the services your company has to offer is good enough, there is a bigger chance in succeeding than otherwise.

If there is anyone that thinks otherwise or has interesting theory on this, please share!

Willem H. van Wijk

Catagorisation of Buyers / Prospects

There are many ways of catagorisation of Buyers / prospects. The catagorisation like - User buyer; the commercial buyer; the technical buyer the Influencer etc. The others being the buyer behaviors at the Growth Mode, At the overconfident mode, the even keel mode etc. OVER TIME THERE HAS BEEN A MAJOR SHIFT... No prospect or Customer or buyer should be branded to a type or in other words should be Typecast.

This is an important change.. which means that a Salesperson should not visit a buyer even during the selling cycle with a pre concieved idea of the person. There are TWO implications to this.

1. The salesperson lowers his guard as he goes with pre-concieved notions of the buyer, thereby is taken off guard and cannot react to sudden changes;

2. The Sales person as is not alert and inveriably misses out on other signals that are off pattern to the typecast.

This concept is very well explained by  the Hindu concept of Sthan, Kal and Patra - meaning Place, Time and Person. When either of the three change ,there is a change in the overall combination and therefore it would not be right to expect the same situation / behavior at different times or different places by the same person.

To summarise - a sales person should always remain in the state of Concious Competence and should never move into the quadrant of Unconcious Competence.

MY FIRST MESSAGE

This is my first entry to not only this weblog but I think any of them. Can someone guide me through a method to this madness we all seem to possess to commuincate? I believe it is absolutely wonderfull and may be one of our biggest  deterrents to long term turmoil in the world however slow it may develop. Communication is the single most powerful weapon we have to preserve ourselves. I briefly looked at the categories and find interest in more than several of them. Any input or help?

Hi there...I'm new to Sales Lab.

Hi All,
          I'm new here..let me introduce my self...I'm a sales professional from Bangalore,India...though my designation might say something else(I guess companies don't want to scare potential client by being too honest)..I'm primarily into IT technology & services selling...a fancy name that people give is IT consulting...been in this field for past 5yrs now...and have garnered a decent name for myself & my company(sorry I'm bad at being modest)....I'm now in the plans of moving to London,UK to accomplish three things..to be with my GF...to do a management consulting course..and to gain an International exposure(any help in this regards is welcome from deepest of my heart)...well hoping to get to know each other along the way.

---
Regards,
Deepak

2010 - What will customers do using the Web?

The evolution under way in digital marketing reflects the fundamental changes in customer behavior. Today, more and more people use the Web - instead of books, the yellow pages, libraries, car dealers, department stores - to search for information and to share views. In doing so, they often become aware of new products or services and begin comparisons. This intuitively leads to ‘BUY’ decisions.

How far will these shifts go?
According to a Mckinsey Survey of Marketing Executives, by 2010 the Web will play a role in the below mentioned stages of customer decision making process:

1. Product or Service Awareness
2. Information Gathering
3. Comparing prices
4. Buying Products or Services
5. Using Services - after sales/customer service

The expectation that most customers (75% in the hi-tech industry) will seek out new products or services online may be a factor in the plans of organizations to increase spending significantly on several digital marketing tools they see as most useful in building brands. A smaller proportion of customers will use the Web to execute transactions or access services. Still organizations expect to double the business done through online channel in three years compared to today.
Although the hi-tech industry expects about 70% of its customer base to be influenced by the Web to make a decision or better still buy their service or product on the Web; only 25% of the organizations are using online tools or have plans for it.

Organizations, today, need to begin integrating their online and offline marketing efforts and plan for better customer centric approach. Scope of improvement for the industry is large - incorporating a strategy for digital maketing will increase the possibility of reaching a sizable market of customers through successful efforts that could reap benefits offline as well.