Should sales people know the ins and outs of a product? Should he/she be able to quote the dimensions, weight, features, functions, etc? The answer, as always, is “it depends”. If you have a well developed sales team, you may have hunters, farmers, and sales engineers. The sales engineers is an interesting creature. It sits [...]
How do you capture and make available all of the knowledge in an employee’s e-mail? What if that employee leaves? Who has access to the data? Mauro Cardarelli points out an article in CIO Insight about Robert Scoble‘s views on corporate blogging. Scoble happens to be a former Microsoft employee and one of the most [...]
Are you spending time on things that will help you reach your goals? Or, do you fall victim to a self-induced trap of responding to unnecessary e-mails, meetings, etc… that, on reflection, don’t help you reach your goals? (I was in a meeting last week where I was read to — yes, actually read to [...]
Do you tell your co-workers, partners, and clients what your expectations are in a manner so simple a twelve-year old can understand them? In the IT business, we use a lot of acronyms. Do you assume everyone knows them? In any sales role, you’ll expect your customers to pay on time. In product development, you [...]
Until today, I’ve been very reluctant to address Microsoft’s mentality toward the enlightened small business and freelance business. Microsoft released Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 for free. Yes, for free. Their disclaimer even says, “no strings”. I have not tested the “no strings” claim. This is the not the first free product they’ve offered to keep brand [...]
