Mitchell Selling Dynamics 2004 Newsletters

Click below to see prior year's newsletters

2011 - 2010
2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004
2003 - 2002 - 2001 - 2000 - 1999 - 1998

 

Newsletter for 4Q04

To: Our subscribers

We have sent this Newsletter because our records indicate you or someone else at your company expressed an interest in our services.
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Synchronizing LotusNotes with a PDA

LotusNotes can be synchronized with a PalmPilot or other PDA using a variety of software including: 
- IBM has EasySync Pro for $65
- IntelliSync Handheld Edition $70
- CommonTimes mNotes $75
- There are a bunch of products at www.software.palmone.com

Virus Definitions

There is a great site which provide free information on virus definitions and solutions. Go to www.trendmicro.com and then navigate to Virus Encyclopedia. Just enter a suspected file name or message from you PC. Another helpful site is www.sysinfo.org for the names of programs that should and should not be in your Start-Up applications.

Global Business Protocol

Learn important methods of doing business in 30 countries. Visit www.globesmart.net

 

Internet Collaboration

Several companies will help you do project collaboration on the Internet. This is great for any company that has clients who require a lot of approvals and modifications from a number of people. Companies offering this service include: Basecamp from www.37signals.com and Groove Virtual Office from www.groove.net and Intranets.com from www.intranets.com. Groove is a flat fee to buy the application while the others charge a monthly fee.

 

Synchronizing Microsoft Outlook with a PDA

PalmPilots and other PDA's can be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook using PocketMirror software from www.chapura.com

PC Parasites

Life Saver: I have a couple of XP machines that were unusable, meaning I could not log on to the Internet and everything ran so slow. I downloaded Ad-Aware SE for free from www.cnet.com and it found 1815 parasites on them and it deleted them and now they are fine. This was after I ran Norton Antivirus 2004 and SpyHunter.

Navigator On Your Windshield

Microsoft's Streets and Trips 2005 has a small Global Positioning System device that links to a lap top with a USB cable and mounts with a suction cup. You get the program and the GPS device for $129. For more info go to: http://www.microsoft.com/streets/default.mspx

Do Better Internet Research

Amplify from www.amplify.com is an add-on to your Internet Explorer browser that helps you do research and is much better than Google or Yahoo for certain searches. Onfolio from www.onfolio.com and enLighter Retriever from www.n-liter.com are also very helpful.

 

 

Newsletter for 3Q04

Creating Continual Value for Your Clients

(From Neil Rackham, founder of Huthwaite)
----------------------------------------------------
Want to increase market share? Want to increase revenue per account? Want to build referrals? Of course: what organization wouldn't? Building a strategic and tactical plan to retain and grow your existing clients will do all three. Building one plan, to fit all your clients, will do none. .

Are your client retention activities carefully segmented by both profitability and buyer type? In his ground breaking research, Creating Real Value for Customers Neil Rackham, Huthwaite?s founder, argued that there are three core buyer types:

1. Intrinsic value buyers: the value is intrinsic to the product alone, they already understand what they are buying and how to use it, the sales force adds nothing. One of the most well known intrinsic value buyers is Wal-Mart. These are called "Transactional" customers.
2. Extrinsic value buyers: the value is not so much in the product, but chiefly in how it is used. These customers put a premium on help and advice. These are called "Consultative" customers.
3. Strategic value buyers: they demand an extraordinary level of value offering, the product or advise is insufficient, they are looking to leverage all of their partner's core competencies and will transform their own organization and strategies to make the most of their strategic value relationship. These are called "Enterprise" customers.

The successful sales organization will sell to each buyer type differently, creating real value in the sales process itself. The successful whole organization, will manage the on-going client relationship to each buyer type differently, thereby creating continual value for its clients.

Think of your single most profitable intrinsic value client. Now think of your single most profitable strategic value client. These are your two extremes. Given that the value they purchased was dramatically different, it is highly probable that what they will continue to value, will be dramatically different. Therefore, if your client retention activities look the same for both these clients, you have a fundamental problem. They do not value the same things.

For example, offering on-going nuggets of advise to an intrinsic value buyer is more likely to build irritation then retention. In the same way, sending weekly product schematics with no explanation or support to an extrinsic buyer suggests that you do not understand them as a client.

Continual is the key. After all, what they value is not a surprise. You know the value that you sold and that they bought. You know their needs and their perceptions. Now, you just have to embed them throughout every touch point in your organization. Client focus by buyer type needs to become habitual

Want to know if your email is read?

There is a service that can tell you if your email is read and a lot more. The service is available from www.didtheyreadit.com for $50 per year. It works on all email applications including web mail. Another similar service is available from www.messagetag.com

Get Info on Companies

If you need to check out a company BEFORE you work on them you might want to use a couple of sites to get info: www.bbb.org for the Better Business Bureau and www.ftc.org for the Federal Trade Commission. There are more links on our web site in the "Info On Companies" part of "Useful Web Sites List" section.

Web Conferencing without all the Cost

Check out www.catatech.com for a bare-bones web conferencing site. Cost for 100 "attendees" is $129 per month and it offers "Whiteboard" and "Application" sharing and "PowerPoint" presentations.

On Being Happy

The key to staying happy, in my friend Jerry Fireman's opinion, is filling up your life with fulfilling and meaningful activities. These ideas are not really designed to help get you out of a bad mood but more to be done on a regular basis to keep you in a positive mood. There's nothing very new here but I am hoping that they might help in a small way.

1) Fulfilling work Probably the most important of all because that's where you spend most of your time. You should concentrate on doing a great job rather than letting your mind wander. Your work should bring you connections with other people, such as part of a team or making a difference to customers.

2) Staying close to friends and relatives. Make contact every day with as many friends and relatives as you have time to. Call them on the phone, meet them for coffee, send them an email, mail them a greeting card.

3) Good deeds. Do nice things for others on a regular basis. This should include your friends and relatives, co-workers, and people you have never seen before and will never see again. Things that no one will ever know you did are best of all, like picking up someone else's litter when no one is around.

4) Exercise. A good workout will make you feel great for at least four hours so try to plan it just before the times when you normally feel down. The best exercise is when you raise your heart rate to 70% of your maximum for 30 minutes or more, so think about getting a heart rate monitor to measure your effort.

5) Passion. Find something that you can be enthusiastic about that has nothing to do with your own personal well-being. For example, work for a political candidate, join an organization dedicated to a cause, support a charity, or maybe help an older person in your neighborhood on a regular basis.

6. Spiritual Development - Spend a reasonable amount of time being pursuing being "good" and learning about what others are doing in this area. Often this involves some kind of religious connection but it can be independent reading or discussions.

Fires Started By Cell phones

In the first case, the phone was placed on the car's trunk lid during fueling; it rang and the ensuing fire destroyed the car and the gasoline pump.

In the second, an individual suffered severe burns to their face when fumes ignited as they answered a call while refueling their car.

And in the third, an individual suffered burns to the thigh and groin as fumes ignited when the phone, which was in their pocket, rang while they were fueling their car.

Thunder & Lightening on the golf course

The speed of sound is roughly 300 meters per second or sound travels a mile in 5 seconds

So, if you are on a golf course and you see lightening you can can count the time from when you see it to when you hear the thunder and know that a 5 second separation means that the storm is a mile away.

If the winds are running at 10 mph you will know that you have 6 minutes to get to safety if the storm is a mile away

 

 

Newsletter for 2Q04

Thank Goodness, we made it through the winter!

Cheap Overseas Cell Phone Calls

You can use your cell phone to call Europe and Asia for under $0.10 per call with a service from www.i2telecom.com.  Another company also providing VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is www.vonage.com 

RepairClinic.Com

You can get repair help and low-cost replacement parts for all kinds of appliances including stoves, washers, dryers, refrigerators, etc at www.repairclinic.com or by calling them at 800-269-2609. 

File Sharing for "Large Files"

New program called BitTorrent from http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/ can send huge files using a new technology.

IMTS Speicial - $500 Free

The police property rooms around the USA are now on-line selling stuff. Great site for buying bicycles. Check out 

Language Translations for Free

BabelFish is available from AltaVista to translate the most common languages into English.  Visit www.altavista.com and then click on "more" and then click on "translations".

Caffeinnated Beverages do HYDRATE like water

Contrary to most opinions beverages with caffeine do HYDRATE your body like water.  However, alcoholic beverages do NOT.  One out of two isn't bad is it?  This is from FitnessRX February 2004 and it is based on a University of Nebraska study.

Phone #'s if you lose your wallet

Call Equifax 800-525-6285 and Experian (formerly TRW) at 888-397-3742 and Trans Union at 800-680-7289

Social Networking

This is NOT dating.  These sites are for business people to network and specifically for sales people to get more business. The sites are www.linkedin.com and www.ryze.com and www.spoke.com 

 

Newsletter for 1Q04

Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy New Year!

Direct From Digital Camera to PowerPoint

Microsoft has a free "add-in" that will allow you to create a "Photo Album" slide show by moving all the files in a folder into PowerPoint automatically. Instead of painstakingly adding each digital picture item one at a time. The add-in file is album.exe and you can get it from www.microsoft.com. After entering the site search for album.exe

Post Office now Notarizes email

The United States Postal Service now provides a way of verifying that a Microsoft WORD document's content is the same as when a user saved it.... like a Notary Public. A copy of the document is stored in a database for 7 years and matched against a receiver's document to verify content. The sender's authenticity comes from an electronic certificate that comes from GeoTrust and costs $19.95 for a full year. Visit www.usps.com for more info about the Electronic Postmark. The cost is up to $0.80 for each.  Authenidate plans to develop the system for Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat and email.

Cell Phone "Locator"

Nextel now has a "Locator" system where the exact location of a cell phone can be shown on your computer screen in real time using a web based map. With this system you can zoom in or out to street level AND you can locate the last five locations of any phone using past location queries. Obviously, if the cell phone is carried by an employee you can tell exactly where the employee is and where the employee has been. The system costs $15 per month per phone.

Holidays for Outlook2000

The holidays list (Outlook.hol) included with the Microsoft Outlook 2000 calendar, expired at the end of 2002. An update is available from Microsoft that updates the calendar with holidays spanning 2003 to 2007.  You can get it at www.microsoft.com and then go to downloads or search on the Microsoft site.

Schedule for 2004 All Programs 2 Days With Extensive Role-Playing

"Relationship Selling": Cleveland - April 1 & 2, 2004; Detroit - March 25 & 26, 2004
"Inside Sales Excellence": Cleveland - May 6 & 7, 2004; Detroit - April 22 & 23, 2004
"Negotiation Excellence": Cleveland - April 15 & 16, 2004; Detroit - April 8 & 9, 2004
"Sales Force Automation": Cleveland - March 4 & 5, 2004; Detroit - March 11 & 12, 2004

Custom programs are available at your facility

Body Mass Index

Check the following link to get your Body Mass Index http://www.fitnessusa.com/BMI.htm For your amusement, mine is 24

Police Property Rooms

The police property rooms around the USA are now on-line selling stuff. Great site for buying bicycles. Check out  www.stealitback.com 

 

 

 

Click below to see prior year's newsletters

2011 - 2010
2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004
2003 - 2002 - 2001 - 2000 - 1999 - 1998

   


Mitchell Selling Dynamics, Inc.
Since 1990

   

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Phone: 248-644-8092
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