Thursday, May 24, 2007

Sales 101 Last week I was at a conference and the organizers allowed the sponsors (or some of them) to give a presentation. One company gave the mike to a sales guy (now if memory serves, he has a PhD in engineering, but...). Unfortunately, instead of giving a nice technical presentation that would have been well received by an audience of engineers, he couldn't resist turning the talk into a sales pitch. So I made a note to self: Self, don't sales people today realize that people don't want to be "sold"? Most of us want to buy things--we just don't want the big sales pitch. When I'm in the market for something, I just love to run into a professional sales person who creates a connection with me, probes to discover what my wants, needs and desires are, and then guides me to the correct product. I don't even mind advertising if it's something I'm likely to be interested in. But big sales pitches turn me off. I think I'm not The Lone Ranger on that one. So what happens this week? I'm moderating a forum and a sales guy (friendly and well meaning--and nameless here) takes the mike in the guise of asking a question and then makes a sales pitch for his product. He wasn't going to make one sale that way. Do your salesperson friends a favor and tell them about professional sales skills. I took three courses when I was trying to go from geek to smooth sales guy. Learned a lot. Became an editor (but that's another story). Mostly I learned that the best salespeople talk less and listen more. Pass the word. It isn't a secret--just not obvious. 9:25:58 PM    comment []

Rockwell spends some money I just arrived home after a trip to Chicago for the Packaging Automation Forum (more later) and a visit with some Rockwell Automation process folks. The timing was somewhat unfortunate. I had two messages in my inbox when I arrived informing me that Rockwell has purchased ICS Triplex for 110 million British pounds. That's about 1.5 times latest annual earnings. So, no chance to question them first hand. Not mentioned in the release is the ISaGraf part of ICS. That part of the company was independent until a few years ago and is a supplier of IEC 61131 programming and control software. I believe that Rockwell was (not sure if still is) a customer for that. IsaGraf can be found under the hood of several control products. But the big thing is safety. ICS Triplex has a history and reputation in critical safety systems. This purchase gives Rockwell a huge boost to its process ambitions. I have long wondered how long ICS could remain independent, so I think this is a good move for both companies. I hope to have more later. 9:15:10 PM    comment []