Happy Holidays

Shout out to all our friends and family for your support and friendship over the last year. The holiday season often allows one to reflect on the good things in life and why you should be thankful. Here at the Pacific Northwest Rainmakers, we take a lot of pride in the work we have done for our exceptional clients this year. Our clients are the class of their prospective industries and truly deserve the success they have gained. To my partners, hats off on a brilliant job of "doing the right thing". I know that sounds trite, but often in our business you can make a lot of money by not doing the right thing. Finally, to my family, a loving thanks for all the support in starting a new venture that has been time challenging to the rest of my family priorities.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakuh, Great Festivus, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year.

Privacy and Smartphones

New WSJ article on information that is shared from your smartphone.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576020083703574602.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADTop

Pandora was one of the mobile apps that would appear to be offending the privacy rule. It is clear that privacy is not top of mind, rather gathering that all important consumer info. I am not saying that I don't undertand the use case for the information, but then again I should have more obvious control over where it goes or whether it goes at all.

Will it take a label like "Smartphone Apps may be hazardous to your Privacy" to bring out the smoking like fear in the consumer?

Territory Sales Plan

My colleague and I were discussing a sales strategy for an inside sales team the other day. We were talking about call volumes, qualification techniques and closing over the phone. Then he mentioned the importance of a business plan, ie the territory sales plan, for each territory and each sales rep. Many sales organizations work hard with their field reps to determine key prospects and deal focus, but they fall down when it comes to inside sales people. It is no less important for an individual sales plan whether you have a $5M quota or $500k. Just as a reminder, here a few things to remember to put in that sales plan: Objectives, Call plans and volumes, Integration with Marketing Campaigns, Distribution of key accounts in the Territory, and Personal Goals. Everything in the plan should be tied to a timeframe and reviewed on a weekly, monthly and/or quarterly basis depending on the goal. Don't let your sales reps wander the desert like a nomad without a compass, work the plan!

Not so Yahoo

It is really hard to be third in a three way race, but that where you find Yahoo these days. Google and Facebook are exploding while Yahoo is burning another 5% of its workforce.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703727804576018184166348462.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

How could it come to this? Well, the failure to innovate is the prescription to detonate. Yahoo long touted its ad business and easy to gather information as the backbone to a new information revolution. Unfortunately, Google popped in with a information gathering process that was more logical and dynamic and the ad revenue followed.

Are there some good assets at Yahoo, absolutely, they still have one of the best job search sites and their regionally specific information is excellent and unbiased. They spurned Microsoft earlier which tells me they still want to fight the fight. In the end, I always said you can't cut your way to profitability and survive. Yahoo needs to pivot and be very good a one thing (something) again.

A and P

The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, once the largest grocery chain in the US, declared bankruptcy today.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-12-13-ap-bankruptcy_N.htm

This is not news for anyone in the grocery industry, A&P has been bleeding for quite a while with poor acquisitions (Pathmark) and musical chair executives. They have several store formats in the NY, NJ area, most of which have been hammered by the economy and competition from upscale stores (ie Wegmans) and tighter merchandising from competitors like Shoprite.

There are 41,000 employees working in the stores today that probably deserve a good recovery plan. But, A&P is sitting on some bad real estate, a bad economy, and bad management. The holiday season doesn't look bright.

Pop ups, Pop overs, and Pop Tarts

OK, I have had it. I realize most web sites are funded by well designed ads that are touch sensitive to the mouse over. But, enough is enough, most of my favorite sites are completely cluttered and you can't get to the articles you want to read without smashing 4-5 ads that you had no intention of looking at. Here is the typical scenario, you go to your site and a full page ad runs for 15 seconds with a button the size of a molecule in a hidden corner that allows you to leave earlier. If you could find that button, and that's a monster if, you can go to the original splash page. But wait there's more. The splash page is a top down half page ad with an imbedded video that blows out my laptop speakers and can't be stopped for another 10 seconds. Now finally the original home splash page. I read a couple of headline articles and then try to go to my favorite tab to hit the sub pages. Dohh! I accidently ran my mouse over a picture on the side of the page and immediately transferred to another page that tells me what I can do about my erectile dysfunction. My wife doesn't even know I have the problem, and neither did I. Well now I am in another tab, which I need to close to get back to my original source and lo and behold that video is playing again. This morning I timed the whole exercise and it took me 4 1/2 minutes to get what I originally went to the site for, so much for the speed of the internet.

Right now I am enjoying the newspaper in real paper form and eating a pop tart.

Inside Sales Teams

An old new trend is emerging in a lot of tech and marketing companies, the inside telesales team. It is a great way to penetrate a broad geography or a specific vertical market. With the maturity of online materials and free conferencing tools like Skype, demonstration of your solution becomes a lot easier. Many times a prospect will be will to take a look online at a product, then want the deeper dive during an online demo. All this is great, but here are a few things to consider if you are headed this route

1) If you expect the inside model to increase sales velocity significantly, your product/solution must be very close to turn key.
2) It is critical that you have a no nonsense, easy to review, possibly click wrap contract
3) Finally, inside sales people are a different breed from traditional face to face reps, get someone who has experience in the role and has demonstrated success.

Good luck and give us a shout out if you need more information