Comments for Coley Perry

Comment on The “Art” of doing nothing… by Kevin O'Brien

Kevin O'Brien — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:23:57 +0000

Good stuff. Funny how that works. Dictating the solution versus letting the team come up with the idea could make all the difference. In the end, you as the leader will get the credit for building a thriving business. Everyone wins.

Comment on That guy is a “Loose Cannon” by Steve

Steve — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:47:07 +0000

Spot on Coley – especially the description around what is ‘lost’ or what I term the opportunity cost.

When leadership loses an appetitite for risk around small innovations that’s when the ‘ship’ gets lost and loses navigational power…

Great post!

Comment on A Book You Should Read ASAP! by Melissa Giovagnoli

Melissa Giovagnoli — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:00:15 +0000

As a book publisher and a publishing consultant this book does definitely deserve attention. I am also an author on entrepreneurship and the concept of “intrapreneurship” in my book (no pun intended) has not been given enough attention.

Here is a great article by Ron Burt on collaborative networks in organizations – http://blog.spigit.com/permalink/2009/10/19/study_collaborative_networks_produce_better_ideas. Put these two together and you have the 20 percent that yields an 80% return.

Best,

Melissa Giovagnoli
Founder and CEO, Networlding
Author of Networlding, #10 on Amazon (in Chicago) for a year
http://www.networldingblog.com

Comment on Marketing the right way! by Robert C. Wolcott

Robert C. Wolcott — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:53:09 +0000

Thanks, Coley. It was a pleasure working with Phil Kotler and learning quite a bit from him in the process. The relationship between Marketing and R&D might be one of the most critical in business. As Peter Drucker said, “the only core functions of business are to innovate and market. Everything else is a support function.”

I’d, of course, clarify that Drucker meant SALES, not just ‘marketing.’

Comment on That guy is a “Loose Cannon” by Marietta

Marietta — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:46:41 +0000

Coley, excellent article! There are those smart enough to surround themselves with these folks .. and those not smart enough to know when they’ve found the Golden Goose ..

Enjoyed this .. thanks

Comment on Are those clean or dirty? by Jason Gramke

Jason Gramke — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:22:06 +0000

Clever. Nicely done.

Jason

Comment on Can you tell me how to get… How to get to Sesame Street? by fyancy

fyancy — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:25:49 +0000

This is such a great way to think about business at large. This is also a great checklist, when trying to decipher a sound business idea. Thanks, I also really enjoyed the piece about understanding your customer; such a tuff task but a great way to think about it.

Comment on Cold Calling… by kobrien

kobrien — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:18:40 +0000

Cold calling is a must. I have been in multiple sales team environments and it never fails- the TOP producers are highly skilled and fearless cold callers. Those that are afraid to cold call cannot be successful sales people. Cold calling is a tactic that when used accurately, can be a highly successful lead generation tool. Cold calls made warm are the best form of cold calls. Gaining intelligence on a contact prior to the cold call makes your cold call much more effective.

Cold calling is also a system. It’s not as effective if the calls are one-off’s and do not generate caller awareness to the prospect. There are different strategies that can be employed, but the one that has always worked for me is the “keep a promise” tactic. Once you have generated intelligence of some sort on the prospect, understand the 2-3 points that may create a pain or conversation with the person answering the phone. Make the call and if they do not answer, leave a message. The message MUST include a statement telling them that you will call them again by a certain date if you do not hear back from them. This is the promise that you have made. KEEP THAT PROMISE. Call the person back when you promised and then leave another message. Repeat this cycle. I realize that this tactic is very different from others, as most people prefer not to leave messages and just call and call until they get the prospect on the phone. By creating a dialog with the person’s voicemail, you are displaying consistency, organizational skills, commitment and much more. Even if it takes forever to get the person on the phone, when you do, they will either tell you to quit calling or apologize for not getting back. 9 times out of 10, I have had the person apologize. NOW THEY OWN YOU SOMETHING! Start asking questions to understand pain.

Bottom line, you can’t be a good sales rep and not have cold calling in your prospecting plan. I would challenge anyone that manages sales to tell their sales team not to cold call and actually produce top performers. More of this to come on http://www.e-four.com .

Thanks for the forum Coley.

Comment on Selling IT Services in Chicago… by joeizzo

joeizzo — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 04:20:32 +0000

You make a great point. The midwest is a completely different market when it comes to building relationships BUT I believe that the basics of closing a deal are international. An effective sales person should understand the techniques used in closing a sale and those techniques know no boundaries. We need to get away from the nicey-nicey BS, “is that a picture of your kids” approach to sales and move into a realistic buyer/seller dance that works in our favor.

Comment on Bluetooth by joeizzo

joeizzo — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 04:16:39 +0000

BMW is too rich for my blood. I can barely get my Treo to synch up to my Bluetooth headset…This technology needs to get better, NOW!