November 12, 2008

are customers always right ?

I'm spending some days of vacation in Israel, and i realized how different could be the little shops and the "structured retail stores"

What a contrast between shopping at IKEA ( in netanyia) and shopping in Herzl street!

at IKEA, we wanted to buy a small transformable table made of wood, exactly the model presented there. We don't have this one in stock , we do have the dark color one. Yes ( me speaking) , but i came on purpose and i do need a table to work !! "sorry you can't have it", (me) "What about this one here in the shop, may i buy it ?, so eventually i've got it now". No we don't sell, and if we accept to sell it , it is at the regular price, no discount because it's used and got some marks here and there !! Same experience in the shutter's department of IKEA !! for sure the customer needs to adapt to IKEAn way of life and not even think that this IKEA is located somewhere in the middle east where bargaining is not a vice !

In Herzl street on the countrary , we had the best possible welcome from a small bed shop owner , it was 7pm, he took his time to show us everything, got it in stock , and delivered it the next day !! cherry on the cake, i got the great feeling of making a big bargain after getting some 100 ILS off the price !

oh by the way i got an other " customer is not always right" experience in a laundry located on dizzengoff street. i brought 10 kilos of clothes, towels to have them cleaned. My wife incidently left in there a couple of wool garnments, no problem, they got same treatment and came as nice Barbie Doll clothes , btw we look for some one to buy them from us !! the Laundry owner remembered me my obligation as a client : sort out your clothes so this does not happen again!! "i don't have time to read the washing instructions attached to your clothes !! it's your problem !!

Actually we bought a nice washing machine , so we don't try again upsetting a laundry owner in the neighbourhood.

Last one was with ACE the leading DIY store situated on the aharbour of Tel aviv, great people in the shop, we bought a lot from them, good information... but yesterday , i parked my car there and was surprized that the cash manager refused to hand over a voucher ( only if you buy more than 200$), i have been in that store every day since i'm in Tel Aviv the last 10 days !! The lady looked surprized when i told her, "never say no to a customer !!"

so more to do to increase the service level in large , structured retail stores !! i'll try to question our local sales training partners in Israel and will publish there opinion here

October 28, 2008

Flavio Calonge, Head of LATAM LRG sales for Microsoft uses Braille language on his business cards

meeting Flavio has been already a very interesting experience, He is using business cards which are "braille language" enabled. (allowing blind persons to read by touching)

He says that he did it to be compliant with his perception of good citizenship. Flavio conceded that some client did appreciate very much the attention.

 http://www.access-usa.com/Services/biz_card.htm

    NY_biz

October 27, 2008

Speaking to PDMs ( political decision makers) presentation at Microsoft ISU

Microsoft invited e-bda to present how sales people of partners and microsoft should speak to Political decision makers.

Influencing is trying to capture the key initiatives of the political decision makers, understanding their KPIs and CSF in order to establish a partner+Microsoft Value porposition to answer the PDM current key initiatives.

Influencing PDMs (e-bda) V5 

more than 80 participants from EMEA and some from around the world did participat into this first day of the ISU.

October 15, 2008

Ismail Sharif (program manager EMEA+APAC) posted pictures of Vaux le Vicomte

Ismail Shariff, during his last visit in paris took some great picture of the castle and gardens of Vaux le Vicomte.

This castle is the Pilot of Versailles, it's size and the environment is really worth the visit.

We'll be happy to help you setting up your own visit there, in the meantime enjoy Ismail's Pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ismail_shariff/sets/72157608032577313/

September 29, 2008

White paper on the Value of Microsoft platform (in french)

Malik super compresséeMalik on request of Patrick Duboys (DMIT) wrote the following white paper on the value of Microsoft Plaftorm. (in french)

http://www.dmit.eu/france/Num%C3%A9ros/1/article8/default.aspx

Malik is heading the Microsoft Readiness Program Worldwide, he is a recognized expert of infrastructure optimization ( IO).

Malik joined e-bda in 2001, he is a telecom engineer, he headed over the past years more than 20 succesful readiness programs for HP, Microsoft .

 

September 16, 2008

Jean-Richard & Jean-Baptiste join Etienne for a e-rendez-vous with la fnac digitale in paris

On friday sept. 19th at 6pm, Etienne Pluvinage hosted at la FNAC Digitale in Paris ST Germain a "e-rendez-vous" meeting with Fnac Members around his last book " they create to serve"

Etienne is an independant writer and editor of a specialized series of books (Milalma) around entrepreneurs and their human experience.

Jean-Baptiste Quelquejay and JR Bloch did play some roles to demonstrate "best practices" in Selling to Executives

Fnac

Jean Baptiste helped Jean-Richard in providing customer feed back on Selling to Executives seminars delivered for Unilog ( Now Logica -CMG) Jean-Baptiste succeded in selling over 200M€ during last fiscal year.


thank you to all wo came to meet us there .

e-bda did participate into the the first networkers forum in Paris

The networkers forum is a very usefull business networking event organized by Challengy  Challengy ( André Dan) and powered by Chance2meet ( http://www.newtonstrand.com/). We had a very effective use of our time. We highly recommend events powered by Chance2meet and in France the ones organized by ANdré Dan.

see also Video in French

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/the%2Bnetworkers%2Bforum/video/x6p8ma_the-networkers-forum_tech

August 22, 2008

near real sales stories

We will each week issue a new Near Real Sales Story.

Q: What is a Near Real Sales Story?

A: a story based on real facts, slightly modified in order to protect privacy of stakeholders.

Q: what’s the value of a Near Real Sales Story?

A: A Near Real Sales Story brings morale, and some lessons learned.

Q: what it will look like?

A: once upon a time the Jim, the General Manager of Swisstech (named changed), decided to increase the ability of his teams who are selling computer hardware, services & financing to target new decision makers in their accounts.

Jim, decided that Selling to Executives would require not only preparing and participating into another sales program, it will be a dramatic change in ways his teams and management would be selling in the future.

He took 4 key decisions:

1.       Actively participate to a pilot session with his management board composed of: HR , Finance, Services, direct Sales, marketing directors with clear objectives:

·         test and validate the program

·         have his management team changing mentality when considering selling to executives

·         Be sure that everyone would go in the same defined direction.

2.       Have everyone pre-sales, sales, account directors, marketing trained.

3.       Friday coffe talk would incorporate a specific “who is Selling to Executives?” session. This way an ongoing reinforcement that “this is the way to go!”

4.       A specific Selling to Executives “Key Sales Objective” has been defined: sales people only do what they are paid to do.

It is not a miracle that sales changed their approach Vis à Vis selling to new business decision makers. Results came very fast with everyone taking new C-Level appointments, keeping the usual business going on.

JR point of view: Jim took the right decisions, the one that do not cost much!! , by getting all his organization aligned, and through weekly reinforcement (Friday coffee speech), he became the central actor of the Change Management he wanted to happen. Old sales reps (25 years in the job), admited very soon after the seminar that “it works”, meaning they were able to get access to C-Levels in their accounts. Some C-Level even told Jim’s teams, “why didn’t you come before?  We are always open to discuss business with a well managed company like yours!!”

Morale: take the right decision , be sure your management is supporting the new sales strategy, demonstrate your real and sincere interest in the change you are imposing, measure it and pay people to do it !!, Do it yourself so no one will doubt of your determination and comitment.

August 21, 2008

welcome to our new sales associates

AndrewWe welcome Andrew as our new International Sales Associates, Andrew is the founder and sales expert consultant of Vista Business Development Consulting:  www.vistabusiness.org . Andrew on top of being an excellent Sales Development Consultant decided to join e-bda internatonal sales team. Andrew already developped two programs with e-bda. Adrew worked for Cap Gemini, Sema and Atos.  

success stories

 

we are very proud of our refernces, they are the testimony that our workshops created value for clients and helped them sell better and higher !!

how Microsoft EMEA improved their servers sales : Download success_story_microsoft_emea.pdf

how SAS doubled the size of their opportunities :Download success_story_sas.pdf

how HP sells to executives : Download success_story_hp_selling_to_executives.pdf

fujitsu services sold a 15 million € outsourcing deal after their Selling to execustives workshop: download success_story_fujitsu_services.pdf

Thales creates a new passport for new hires: Download success_story_thales.pdf

Steria improves sales excellence with Selling to executives, winning when presenting and selling your value proposition programs:Download success_storu_steria.pdf

Unilog outsourcing case: Download success_story_unilog.pdf

microsoft trains their worldwide channel partners and direct sales in 60+ countries:Download success_story_microsoft_corporation.pdf

microsoft EMEA improves the sales excellence of the public sector teams: Download developing_a_value_proposition_in_denmark.pdf


good reading and please feel free to comment :)

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