I Am Not A Hunter & I Won't Sell Ice To Eskimos

One of our new colleagues asked me about the type of salesperson that I am. Q: Are you a hunter or a farmer? A: I am more of a farmer than a hunter. The upside of being a farmer is that you build long term relationships. The downside is that the sales cycle can be longer. Saying these, it is because of the relationship building that I have closed deals over a phone call. Q: Can you sell ice to Eskimos? A: I probably won't sell them ice. I would sell them a refrigerator if it makes sense to them. A refrigerator provides more value than ice. You can control the temperature of a refrigerator to accommodate your needs. By the way, do you need a generator to power your refrigerator? (for those who don't get it, I just added a up sell product)

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3 Challenges Of Targeting Singapore SMEs For IT Solutions

IT vendors in Singapore love to target the SMEs (Small Medium Enterprise) in Singapore due to the sheer volume of SMEs here. I learned that targeting SMEs here require a special understanding of the environment, especially when it comes to IT solutions SMEs are defined as enterprise with less than 200 staff and annual revenue of not more than SGD2 million dollars. The sheer number of Singapore makes the industry a "honey pot" for any IT vendors. Source: http://www.singstat.gov.sg There are 216,900 enterprises in Singapore and 99% are made up of SMES and they contribute close to half of the S$367.00 billion nominal value created. While targeting SMEs is a must, I have experienced some the challenges around the way and look to share with readers here. Challenge 1: SMEs may not have a dedicated IT person It is impossible for SMEs to avoid having any IT today as the Internet has made IT a must have. In my discussions with SMEs, it came to a surprise that most SM...

Let Me Sell You This Pen!

How would I sell you this pen? I see lots of linkedin posts about selling pens these days. Looks like there is drum up demand for pen salespeople. On a serious note, if I will gauge your interest in getting a pen. By doing so, I would be asking why you need this pen. From the answer, I probably be able to gauge your interest. You need this pen because you need to sign lots of documents. So probably I will introduce you to a pen that would write and last longer than other pens. Or you need a write upside down or write in zero gravity. In this scenerio, I would probably introduce you to a pencil instead. If you just want to find out more about the pen, or just window shopping for a pen, I would still take time to intro you to some pens, but I wouldn't count on you for a sale. Though, I would put you in our mailing list so you will receive our EDMs on pens and maybe there comes a time you be in the market for a pen. Selling a pen is a test of identifying what your sales ta...

What's The Strangest Thing A Customer Asked To Monitor

I was asked today what was the strangest thing a customer ever asked us if we could a monitor. "A IT manager in a legal firm asked if we could monitor his copier/printer," I replied. Apparently, when the lawyers are photocopying or printing and they run out of paper, they blame the IT manager because his is in charge of the IT devices. Interestingly, the first thing we can discover and monitor in the offices are usually those copier printers type. Apparently the printer SNMP is able to show paper levels. So now with a IT monitoring software, when the paper levels run low, it will send a email to the admin staff and the admin staff will top up the papers. The legal firm also saw less cursing and swearing at the copier printer.

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