Very interesting software. I may not very expert in BI but when I look at their presentation of their application, and I said “Wow!”. I think the software with their unique browser-based analytics tool is a really Rapid-Fire BI as it offer fast analysis reports which required less technical knowledge.

I would said, “Best Practise In A Box” sometimes could be the killer for the product but also killing some of the requirement. I probably will be trying the Tableau Software for Public (but that will need to wait untl i have sufficient information to share here).

Another of its uniqueness is deployment on the iPad and that makes lots of bosses happy.

Tableau Software owner is Pat Hanrahan, one of the founding member of Pixar. They said, if you know Buzz and Woody of Toy Story, you have Pat to thank. Now the next genius is Chris Stotle, a computer scientist. Together with Pat, they invented the technology called VisQL(TM) which they said “Visualization is part of the journey and not just the destination”. Hmmm…something to learn about.

And now they are one of the fastest growing technology companies in the world, with 100% annual sales growth. And that is impressive. Heard that they are going wild and expanding fast worldwide. Wonder when they are going to land to South East Asia.

Everyone have been argued about the quality traits of a good managers. Definition various for the word “good” while mentor will be a much better choice. But the following articles will also another mere guidance for managers who want to excel themselves not only in the career but leadership.

Communication skill

A manager is the middle person in between the top management level and the team that reports to him. He has to ensure that communication is smooth and conveyed clearly to avoid misinterpretations and dissatisfaction. It’s useful to develop your negotiation and customer service skills, especially if you deal with clients.

A good planner

In order for you to achieve long term goals and commit to strategies for substantial earnings, you have to communicate the vision of the company to your subordinates. You break down and clarify the goals that each team or individual have to perform and assign work schedules and strategies.

It also involves thinking and planning out strategies on how to improve quality and also being cost conscious and effective. Having goals and planning out the directions allow for effective time management and saves cost and resources.

Decision Maker

The daily routine of making decisions include determining how to approach an employee who is not performing or lacking progress and how to bring about change to the organization and its team. It is essential that your day to day decision is based on what’s important, what’s right and not who’s right.

Interpersonal relationship skill

If you want cooperation from your team or employees, pay attention. Practice empathy and respect the personal values, opinions and ideas with the people you interact with. Listen and respond and offer praises and encouragements when they make progress. By doing that you will enhance their self esteem build trust. As the boss, your ability to develop trust and confidence, resolve problems and issues will result in a productive, goal oriented work group. You should encourage your team to ask for help, get involved and participate.

Character #1 – Results Focused

One of best things about being a sales person is you have a tremendous amount of freedom and discretion in how you use your time. In return, you must be able to stay focused on the big picture and not let small problems or dramas distract you.

 Character #2 – Courageous

We all experience fear at one time or another. Great salespeople are courageous in that they are able to act and move forward even in the presence of their own fears. Fear is the reaction we have when you know that you need to do something or that something is going to happen soon that you are not prepared for.

 Character #3 – High Energy

The true top-performers got that way by working long and hard to beat out their competition while the other guys were enjoying themselves on the golf course. In short, you must be able to do “Whatever It Takes” to get to the top.

 Character #4 – Knows People

The ability to establish rapport and maintain rapport is probably the single most powerful skill a salesperson can have. The most flexible people can adapt and establish rapport with others from a multitude of backgrounds and cultures.

 Character #5 – Committed To Growth

Great salespeople got that way by always looking for a better way. They are always improving their approach, their techniques and their attitude. Great salespeople know that they must look for the best examples of excellence and adopt the individual aspects of this that they can use.

Open-source technology no longer a out-of-the-box applications but rather a customizable solutions. Each organization have different needs and way of running the sales show but all tie back to the same reports, activity and end result – NUMBERS.

The article is great if you are in the midst of evaluating – either go for full fledge license CRM software like Microsoft Dynamics, Goldmine and etc, or you can go with the Saas model CRM like Sieble On-Demand and Salesforce.com or the final one – open source CRM which can tailor entirely to your needs.

CRM buyers might have very few choices were it not for open-source applications. The CRM field is dominated by huge players such as Oracle Corp. and SAP, and the open-source model is perhaps the easiest way into the CRM market for new companies. Open-source CRM projects have been proliferating; SourceForge Inc. lists 369 active open-source CRM projects. The following 10 open-source CRM solutions have risen to the top of the list.

Read More at http://tinyurl.com/dfvszd

Jim Keenan

Growth doesn’t come from sales. You can’t grow your business through your sales organization. Sales is not a growth engine. Sales is the accelerant or the amplifier. Sales takes what you have and amplifies it to your customers. If you don’t have good products, sales isn’t going to help you. If you are in a declining industry, sales isn’t going to help you grow. If the organization is bureaucratic and has inefficient processes, sales can’t help you. Sales doesn’t help you grow. Sales takes the things that will help you grow and makes them grow bigger and faster.

Too many companies look to their sales organization for growth. They look at their numbers and say we need to grow by 10% and then pass that number to the sales team. And why not? It’s easy to do. The sales team has the apparent numbers. They actually bring in the revenue. What’s missing in this approach is the sales team has very little to do with operations. They don’t build the products. They don’t create the processes. They don’t build the business models. Sales takes what you have to market.

If you want to grow your business don’t look to sales. To grow your business look at your products, are they a quantum leap above your competitors products? Look to customer service, do you provide an industry leading customer experience? Look to your market, are you the only player in a growing niche market or are you just another player in mature market. To grow, look at operations. Is your company efficient in it’s use of capital. Are you easy to do business with? Are you the markets first choice? To grow, look to your employees. Do they like working for you? Do you have the most talented people in your industry? Is your company, the company people are clamoring to work for? If you want to grow your business look to these things. Stop looking at sales.

If you want to grow your business, don’t look at sales, look at everything else. Once you’ve done that, take it to sales and ask: “what can you do with this”.

If you have the right sales team, the answer should be, “We could blow it up!” like any good accelerant.

Original page @ http://asalesguy.com/2009/07/08/growth-doesnt-come-from-sales/

Written by Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group, Posted by Doyle Slayton of Salesblogcast.com
[Contributing Author of Salesblogcast.com]

Sales leaders are always looking for ways to improve results.  It begins with getting everyone focused on the right things.  Here are 8 tips that will help you improve team productivity…

1.  Look at your go-to-market strategy, look at it again then look at it one more time.

If you have implemented the same strategy in the last three companies you have worked for, you might want to take some time to lift up your head and check out what has changed.  LOTS has and you want to be sure you are pushing the edge of the envelope with your sales and marketing strategy.

2.  Get creative with the roles and responsibilities of your team.

Just because you have 8 field or inside sales reps it doesn’t mean they all have to do the same job.  Figure out what your market dictates and how you can best serve your buyers then build your implementation around their requirements.  Focus your resources where they will have the most impact.

3.  Bond with marketing.

There has never been a better time to be a Marketing Executive (oh wait, maybe in the days of the internet bubble when the fish jumped into the boat but other than that, now is good!) Marketing is smarter, more communicative and better armed with knowledge and technology than ever before.  Make your Marketing counterpart your “work husband/wife” and spend as much time with them as you do with your team.  It will pay off!

4.  Pay attention to what is important and not just what is urgent.

You got the job because you are smart, know the market and can sell the heck out of the product.  Share your knowledge!  Don’t be holed up in your office pushing metrics around for your next board meeting. Get out there and coach your team.  If you haven’t walked in their shoes lately then you can’t complain about how fast they walk.

5.  Invest in technology intelligently.

Technology will not solve your problems. Only a great process that is executed flawlessly can solve your problems. So before you buy that next shiny new thing make sure you have defined, documented and communicated your sales process.  Then after you have done that, make sure that the technology you already have is being used to its utmost. OK, now you can look at the shiny new thing.

6.  Master your hiring process.

Is your hiring process impeccable?  Would you consider your hiring process a science or an art?  Do you keep hiring people that you “feel good” about and then get frustrated when they don’t perform?  Hiring is the most important thing you can do. Where does it fall on your priority list?  Is it a burden or a joy?  The answer to that question tells the tale.

7.  Invest in success.

OK so you hired great people.  Don’t assume they can figure out how to be successful.  Every driver needs a roadmap when they begin a new trip.  Look at your existing sales tools and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10.  If you are a 7 or below – invest!  How much time is wasted with Reps creating their own tools today?

8.  Embrace Team Feedback.

Ask and ye shall receive. Don’t be afraid to ask your team what they need to be more productive.
 They know and they will tell you.  Don’t pay attention to the one-offs, but do pay attention when you see consistency.  If they need tools, give them tools.  If they need training, get them training.  Don’t be the roadblock to productivity – be the road to success!

Trish Bertuzzi, President and Chief Strategist, founded The Bridge Group with a mission to help technology companies build highly successful inside sales teams. Prior to founding the Bridge Group, Trish designed and built best practice inside sales organizations for companies including Legent Corporation, Cadre Technologies, Bachman Information Systems, and Telesales, Inc.  Want more ideas like these? Visit the Inside Sales Experts Blog!

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Elevator pitch was born in the Elevator!

Often I heard my sales person said, “We can’t use elevator pitch here…it is not practical.” Often my challenges with them is to remove the fear and negative thinking of advancing in the sales technique.

I just attended a partner get-together night meant for the hardware and system integrator guys. What can a software solution selling guy do in the hardware event? Guess what, a short 20-sec pitch helps me to identified 3 potential leads from the short event.

Now, you probably asking how does the elevator pitch works in a cocktail or partners get-together event. Well, time is short for me to mingled around, i need a short, precise and sharp pitch to get them find me new prospect. Oh yeah, I am a solution selling person with channel role. In another hour there will be a technical presentation by the host, dinner begins and follow up with a show and loud music all night long. So, practically I have less than an hour to get around a crowd of 40+ people from 35 companies.

The pitch start with my role, my target customer and how my solutions benefits them by improving business accuracy and better customer services. Not long ago a sales ninja grandmaster told me that we need to pitch ourselves in the shortest time with the information that will glue the people to us. He have a effective technique and guideline to create a striking effect. He called it the Super Networker. I called it Superman. He trained us to be No Fear, how to become Zero (0) Rejection and to define the real purpose of networking. I use all his technique and begin my experience on learning and becoming a networker using elevator pitch.

You need help. You need a strategy. You need a new methodology to overcome this problem and ensure it will not return. That’s what a technology and solutions should do. And we can help that.

My company is helping organization to help strategize their old methodology in managing information via digitization, and simplification. This article provide a great reason why you should need a new strategy on managing your information to become your most valuable asset, or else your information will ended as a waste and a liability to your organization. Read it here