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November 2007

Understanding the Sales and CRM Gap

Dreamforce is Salesforce.com's annual customer and community boondoggle. If you're involved in any way with Salesforce.com or CRM at your company, you should definitely attend. You'll need a good plan for accomplishing your event objectives because there's an information overload. Which brings me to my story.

Posted by by Brian Berlin on 2007-11-24 11:53 0 comments

Beware the Urban Sales Myth: the Big Rolodex

Katherine Rosman writes in the weekend WSJ about the perilous survival of the Rolodex (The Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, November 24-25, 2007) in an age of Blackberrys and iPhones. The article points out that a major appeal of the old-school device is its visual representation of the size of the owner’s network, something the electronic counterparts cannot convey. It prompted me to think about the association of the Rolodex with the sales urban legend: hire a sales representative with a big Rolodex and the deals will follow.

Posted by by Brian Berlin on 2007-11-24 10:24 0 comments

Critical Enterprise Sales Partner: the Field Application Engineer

A key success factor in enterprise technology selling is the SE, or Field Application Engineer, aka "sales engineer."

Posted by by Brian Berlin on 2007-11-24 08:23 0 comments

Strategy Execution: Dell and EqualLogic

Dell's recent announcement to acquire EqualLogic sheds light on the company's strategy to enter the IT channel through key acquisitions. From a strategy planning point-of-view, the acquisition makes sense. Dell will have tough time recruiting new VARs to sell its systems. There is way too much animosity and mistrust in the partner community. Acquiring EqualLogic brings along a respected partner community.