A Dozen Sales and Marketing Commitments

Improving the sales and marketing effort is a ongoing process in which commitment is a prerequisite. To get the thought juices flowing, we offer the following 12 action items that you can personally implement. That is only one a month. 1. Explore new opportunities. Listen to new prospects that are not in the designated target…

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Customer Meetings

Everyone in business loves customer meetings. Run a customer meeting well, and the sales process is driven closer to closure. But, run the customer meeting poorly, and the prospect will count the minutes until they can show you out the door. Given the value that hangs in the balance of individual customer meetings, salespeople and…

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CIS Industry Can Improve

The US Utility CIS market is plagued by questionable growth and excessive competition. These challenges result from the last decade’s development path of the CIS industry. To overcome these challenges, CIS sales and marketing teams need to move beyond features and functionality claims, and express the value of their solution to the utility. Creating value…

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Permission to Sell C-Level Support for High Value Sales

In high value sales, prospects need to provide permission to sell before salespeople can fully engage. Why? Getting permission to sell transforms the selling process from a constant act of pressuring and psychologically tricking prospects into a value added sales process. In a value added sales process, customer challenges are discussed openly, potential solutions are…

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Tantalus Emerges in AMR

In our third article exploring changes in customer business requirements for automatic meter reading (AMR) and their effect in driving market growth and competitor repositioning, we turn to a rising competitor: Tantalus (www.tantalus-systems.com).(1,2) Their story provides insights into the evolution of a technology driven company from services towards products, the building of a technological solution…

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Dialing for Dollars: Anatomy of Prospecting Calls

Making phone calls is one of the few constants with respect to selling in business markets. When businesses sell low-cost goods in high-transaction volume markets, the entire sales process will occur through phone calls. At the opposite end of the spectrum, when businesses sell high-cost goods and services in low-transaction volume markets, the phone is…

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TWACS® Attacks AMR Market

As discussed in our recent article, new business requirements in automatic meter reading (AMR) has increased market demand for AMR and repositioned the leading suppliers. (See Changing Business Requirements Shifts Value Demand) The TWACS solution by DCSI is a well received within the AMR market. What makes the TWACS solution compelling to the market and…

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Four Quotes on the Thin Line of Progress

Challenging conflicts exist between the desire to institutionalize past accomplishments and the need to create of new ones. While it remains appealing to establish administrations, solidify relationships, and smooth the pathway for reproducing that which has been initiated, our nature pushes us to break with the past, chart our own course, and create new ideas…

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Changing Business Requirements Shift Value Demand

For most of the 20th century, reading utility meters had been a mundane process. Meter readers traversed neighborhoods, examined dials, and recorded utility consumption in log-books. At the office, the log-book meter reads were entered into corporate records in preparation of customer billing. Fortunately, the state-of-the-art business process for reading utility meters has changed during…

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Leadership: In-Front of a Moving Train

To take on the role of leadership can be like putting oneself in-front of the moving train. In this rather uncomfortable analogy, the obvious threat to assuming this position is the potential of being overrun if the train speeds up or you fail to keep pace. Less obvious however is the threat of running lead,…

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