In December, I wrote a post titled Give Your Sales People All The Knives.  While I let you draw whatever conclusions you wanted from the post, I thought I’d follow through and give you a little more detail about what I meant by the statement.

I framed the problem with the struggle many software companies have been going through over the past few years (or decades – depending on who’s version of history you believe) around selling perpetual licenses vs. subscriptions.  I inadvertently included the construct of the deployment model (desktop, server, or SaaS / hosted) which, while a key part of the evolution of the software business, was not the part of the problem I was referring to when I suggested you should give your sales people… Read more

As Q408 stumbles to a close, I’m seeing a distinct trifurcation of sales performance among the companies I’m working with.  I’m pleasantly surprised by the companies that are solidly outperforming their Q4 plan, especially since Q4 is the hardest quarter to outperform (since the plan is now typically great than 9 months old.)  Some are fighting to get to their Q4 plan and some are going to fall short regardless of what they do between now and the end of the month.

This is in direct conflict with what you might think if all you do is read the newspaper and watch television.  If this is your information base, you’d conclude that no one could possibly have a successful Q408.  Not true!

That said, in all of the companies I’m… Read more

A CEO friend (who also is an excellent salesman) sent me a fun post titled Sales 101 with the comment "here’s one that will make you laugh in a sad but true kind of way."  Yup – this pretty much sums up the dark underbelly of high tech sales.  If you are a VP of Sales in a high tech companies, read slowly and see what you can do to improve the situation.… Read more

I got the following email on 1/25/08.  The Subject Line was "Naming Bathrooms."

Mr. Feld:

My name is A, and I am a Cadette Girl Scout who is selling cookies to fund my dream of becoming an astronaut. This upcoming summer, I am returning to Huntsville, AL, for Advanced Space Academy, an opportunity offered through Girl Scouts. I am not sure if my dreams will take me to ATLAS at CU (my dad is a professor there), or Cal Tech (and the Jet Propulsion Lab, where my dad is on sabbatical), or even to MIT, where my dad went to school (Course XVI, 1978-1987).

My mom says that it is too bad that MIT did not accept your naming a bathroom offer — she thinks that you should have offered

A humorous view on sales executives. 

My apologies to all my friends that are in sales.  I love each and every one of you.  (Thanks for the link Tim.)… Read more

Following on the "sales" theme I received the following question yesterday from a regular reader.

Are you aware of any blogs that regularly deal with issues that arise when startups sell technology to customers? I am thinking of issues like:

• choosing strategic partners/ resellers/integrators/selling directly
• how to get to customers
• using a PR firm; spending on a website
• what a presentation should look like
• the sales cycle process
• deal structures
• key provisions – exclusivity, pricing, ownership of IP, liability

If you are a VP Sales blogger (or sales guy (or gal – Amy made me say that) blogger) that is writing about this stuff, please leave a comment with your link.  Wendy Lea – time to start blogging!… Read more