Nick 's Profile

People buy for one of two (and sometimes both) reasons; to reduce or eliminate pain or the expectation of added gain.  In good times, the pain can be nothing more than a nuisance and the expectation of gain may be incremental at best.  Clearly, however, these are not good times. 

In today's environment, your prospect's pain must be darn near excruciating and the expectation of added gain goes from incremental to exponential.  So, what do you do?  Since most of us aren't selling products or services that deliver real exponential gain, qualifying for pain is your only viable option.

Pain, when truly present, leads to action.  Incremental gain will get you a meeting, but the sale will invariably wait until dollars can be added back into the budget.  However, if pain is truly present, then even the claim of no budget becomes negotiable.  If pain really exists then the probability of a sale is in direct proportion to your ability to quantify the magnitude of the pain and convince your prospect they need to re-allocate dollars to your solution. 

If you cannot identify real pain with your prospect, then you most likely don't have a real opportunity for a near term sale.  And, since time is the most precious asset of any salesperson, don't waste it on a prospect who is just looking for attention.  Focus on either identifying or creating real pain or move on to someone new.  The good news is that in these times, EVERYONE is in some level of pain.  Find it, quantify it and sell to it and you can experience even better results than when times are "good".  

Subject:  How Toyota Maintains Its Critical Relationships

Dear Mark, 

Q. How do Toyota, Ford, and Honda maintain near-perfect dealer relationships?

A. XYZ Corporation has helped them automate and streamline all aspects of partner communications. As a result, they have increased revenues, accelerated time to market, and improved dealer communications.   

For example, Toyota distributes thousands of unique messages and memorandums to its worldwide dealer distribution channel on a daily basis. Toyota has drastically reduced turnaround times while increasing customer service and loyalty using XYZ’s solution. 

For a free dealer communication analysis or to learn how we can improve and standardize relationships with all your important business partners, please call or e-mail me at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,

John Johnson

XML is Used to Exchange Data

With XML, data can be exchanged between incompatible systems.

In the real world, computer systems and databases contain data in incompatible formats. One of the
most time-consuming
challenges for developers has been to exchange data between such systems over the Internet.

Converting the data to
XML can greatly reduce this complexity and create data that can be read by many different types of applications.

XML Can be Used to Share Data

With XML, plain text files can be used to share data.

Since XML data is stored in plain text format, XML provides a software- and
hardware-independent way of sharing data.

This makes it much easier to create
data that different applications can work with. It also makes
it easier to expand or upgrade a system to new operating systems, servers,
applications, and new browsers. 

As we approach year end, this is an excellent time to take stock of your performance over the past eleven months and begin the planning procedures for 2008.

When you begin constructing your business development strategy for next year you will, in all probability, include a contribution from existing clients/customers but how can you accurately forecast this?

One very subtle way is to conduct formal account reviews, where you ask your clients for feedback on your performance year to date.

I am always surprised how few companies do this because it is an initiative that customers welcome, why? Because it makes them feel important and cared about. 

So, Why Review?

Obtaining continual feedback against a set of established criteria is vital if an organisation is to retain its existing top clients and seek to improve its standing and the quality of its service levels to them.