What also kicked sales along was a campaign I ran twice during the month offering a bonus of 2 months for each new sale made. This strategy was inline with what GoDaddy.com do on a regular basis and it really worked. We trebled our daily conversion rate from our website on the days the campaing was active.

I will continue to run similar campaings every month now and see how far we can take our sales growth.

My experience with cultivating partnerships for both AVG and Carbonite are that having a relationship with a large institutions eg a bank is great because it potentially gives you big exposure to such a large data base but it doesn’t necessarily result in any sales.

The partnerships that really work are those with parties that are going to market and sell the product for you. Although I chase both (its always great to tell a client that you have so and so bank “offering AVG”), my experience to date tells me to focus on developing an offer that attracts parties to market Carbonite and AVG on our behalf eg ISPs either via a reseller or affiliate style relationship where they are incentivised to sell.

You really need them to be active in their promotion for it to be effective (from a sales perspective).

The reality is that I wouldn’t have ended up here if the Greek revolution against the Ottomans hadn’t occurred. I have never lived in Greece but my heritage and that of my families is very important to me. It’s important because it defines most of what I do outside of work. How and what I eat, where I visit, the music I listen to and how I raise my children.

25 March is symbolic because throughout my school education it was the day we marched to the shrine wearing our Greek School uniforms and then extended the day with a visit to Lonsdale St for the Greek Festival.  As a child we were taught Greek history and I remember many of the characters who fought in the war and made hero’s of themselves but I new very little about the war itself and what it really took to make ELLAS a free state and country.

A few years ago I began buying books on Greek history. Books on the war of 1821. Books on the Balkan wars which furthered Greece as well as books on the Greek Civil War which followed WW2.

Without foreign intervention (particularly money and ships) it would have taken much longer for Greece to be free and would have taken many more lives.

I purchased them for my and for my kids so that they may one day have an interest in Greece and its more modern history.

Greece is still a developing country. It was somehow very lucky to enter the EU in its very early form and has benefited greatly by this in term so foreign investment. But, if you think about it, its only really been a democratic state since the mid to late 70s. That is not a long time. Prior to this it was riddled by dictatorships and failed governments.

We went to the Greek festival this year. It was packed. Great to see the Greek community come out in force.

Zito h Ellada, Zito h Australia.

The prospect of being made redundant or even being fired has always been in the back of my mind. Working in Marketing all my life, you are the first to go. I have however been fortunate (luck or good work) that I have never been fired or lost my job.

This situation is however a little different. Potentially, regardless of how hard I work, there is a very real possibility that if the company I work for is not making enough to stay afloat or to meet its expectations that cutting my wage is a saving that will help them.

I have always known that the more I make, the higher the likelihood that this will happen. So I will endeavour to work harder and be smarter. How? By trying to think outside of the square.

One fortunate thing for me (kind of fortunate) is that part of my salary is linked to sales results. This means that I am a cheaper resource if I don’t perform. It’s hurt me financially so far, but maybe it has also saved me.

So how do you work smarter in sales. What I am realising is that you need to look for angles. You need to find a reason to get yourself noticed. I try therefore try to look for low hanging fruit, ie opportunities that can be turned around quickly, don’t cost much to implement and hopefully deliver.

Secondly, I also look for longer term bigger deals. And as these can take months to move from step to step, I keep them bubbling along whilst I implement smaller opportunities.

What this means is that my employer is seeing partnerships implemented today as well as potential partnerships unfolding over time.  It also shows I am delivering.

In terms of thinking outside the square, I look for opportunities and deals that aren’t mainstream. In my business, selling AVG anti-virus as a partnership means I look for partners who have a client base that has a need for my products. They don’t necessarily need to be a large financial institution or an ISP. They can be Forums for stockbrokers or students at university.

It comes down to constatnly thinking and not worring about what we have always done (and being bound by that).

The last time we were in a recession, I had just finished Uni and was looking for my first real job. This time round, I have over 14 years practical experience behind me in large companies. I am more equipped to start again if I need to. I also have a family however and debts so the risks and impacts are higher.

If it came down to it though, I would work as a bus driver if I had to, to make ends meet. There are ads for drivers behind every bus I pass on the way to work. My father always says there is no shame in working. He is right.

Till next time.

The key presenter was a lady by the name of Jill Konrath who is a Sales Presenter from the US and has written many books on Selling. You can access her site at www.sellingtobigcompanies.com

I am not one for reading sales books and such, but her presentation was very practical even for us locally in Australia.

Some of the key points that I picked up were:

• Do your research on the company, find out what is going on in their world so that it gives you a message to draw on, rather than just talking generally. I found this quite useful because it is not just important to know information about the person you are targeting, you need to have some insight into what is going in on in their work environment.

• The second important thing was “Go Slow”. We are all in a rush to make budgets but pushing the client towards a decision they are not 100% sure about is not going to win them over. You need to slow the pace down and show the client the small steps they can take towards making the right decision and purchasing. This can be frustrating but working at their pace will help you more than pushing them.

• KISS is a saying that has been used over and over. Keeping it simple is also a key strategy more so in terms of not showing the client too many options. You might have 3 – 5 solutions but giving them too much can confuse them and make them select a partner that is giving them something simple and easy to work from. Try and stick to 1 or 2 options so that the client knows you have solutions but doesn’t feel overwhelmed.

• Lastly, lead your clients to a solution. In many instances, customers will look to you for guidance, seeing that you are the expert. They don’t necessarily want to be told how to do it, but giving them advice and showing them the path that they need to take is what many are looking for. People want to make the right decision, because performance today counts a lot more than it did 12 months ago.

On a more personal note, the fires that have ravaged parts of Victoria, Australia have damaged lives and generation for many years to come. Over 180 people to date have died, thousands of homes and livelihoods lost. Australia has shown so much compassion raising over $50million for these victims.

The devastation that was experienced is probably what Baghdad must be like on a daily basis with bombs and explosions going off daily. Over a 100,ooo people have died over there and yet I wonder how much fund raising was done for that country.

It’s easy to forget Iraq because it has been tainted as a bad country, with a bad leader and terrorists everywhere. The reality is that they are just as needy of funds as our brothers in King Lake and Merrysville are.

Till next time.

It certainly makes me thing how lucky we are to live in a country that hasn’t been touched by war locally.

The key sales steps were as follows:

People Usually Prefer To Buy Rather Than Be Sold

This is generally true in the world of business technology decisions and it is very important, especially for sales people at the start of a sales career to keep this in mind.

Rule Number 1: Become as expert as you can as quickly as you can in terms of answering questions about your product lucidly and succinctly.

It’s Difficult Enough To Understand Everything About Your Products And Services

Never make any comment about any other supplier’s products or services – you have no way of knowing what changes another company has made to them.

Rule Number 2 = No buyer likes someone criticizing another company’s product or service so never do it

Everything Is Urgent In Terms Of Supplying Information

The ONLY time that it’s appropriate to send a prospective customer information about something he/she has requested is the second after you have put down the phone or read the email.

Rule Number 3 = Always do it NOW without fail EVERY TIME.

Unlike The Old (And Discredited) Proverb – All Things Don’t Come To He Who Waits

If you aren’t doing something to generate new sales every minute of every working day who do you think is doing that for you?

Rule Number 4 = Develop a routine that pushes you to use all of your time to generate business.

There is No Such Thing As A Perfect Sales Document

When you join a company/sales team you will ‘inherit a lot of “boiler plate” documentation that may well have been written by very senior and very competent people within the company.

Rule Number 5 = Every time you send out a proposal/sales letter improve one thing about it – no matter how small.

I think all of these rules are very valid. From my perspective, I would like to add a couple more. Although I haven’t been directly in sales for too long, indirectly I have been for over 10 years and what I also have learnt is the following:

Build Relationships with People.

Price is one thing, but people still like doing business with people. The customer on the other end doesn’t know as much about the service you are offering as you do. So, it is virtually important that you stick close to them, making sure that any questions they have can be quickly answered by you. The last thing you want is for someone else to tell them something about your services or company that doesn’t help you chances. You need to take control of the situation.

Solution selling. This is such an overused word. At the end of the day, most of us just sell products. The solution is putting it in a document that makes it sound like you are solving the customer’s problem. I would be very careful telling people you can solve any problem for them when in reality you have 2 or 3 products that solve 10 – 15 problems.

Help them Sell

In most organisations, projects require internal approval and therefore funding. Funding to buy your wares and funding to allocate resources. What you tend to find is that Product/Marketing Managers may have the ideas and the intent, but getting that across management for approval is a bigger task. Your role as a sales representative is to provide them with enough information to help them build their business case and get it approved.

Always Put Your Best Foot Forward

The saying that you only get once chance to make a good impression is very true. There is no point butting in a proposal with your second best offer because chances are that your competitor hasn’t and you will look expensive and will not get a second chance to change this, now or in the future.

If you are keen to get to win the business, then give the customer your best offer upfront, make sure it is competitive and gets you to the negotiating table.

I have been working on this one large client for close to 4 months now. Had several meetings, submitted several documents/proposals. We requested a special product for them not currently available in Australia. I even went to head office asking for more commission to offer them.

In our informal meeting today (telephone), I advised them of our revised commission terms and was given the response I kind of expected but didn’t want to hear, “what no renewal commission”,  “We don’t work with companies that don’t offer renewal commission”

I knew this was a sticking point, but I had put it in writing within our proposal from day one to ensure they knew it was in our terms. Unfortunately people change and the original duo I was dealing with left and the new contact (more senior) didn’t bother referring to what was in the proposal (although I had advised that we had submitted a proposal).

Not all is lost though. Our rates are very competitive even without renewal and now it becomes a waiting game. He will no doubt hear from our competitor that they either want to play or not. I can’t see them offering any more than us as we are both priced the same and the online backup consumer market has so little fat in it. You never know though, times are tough and they are a big customer.

They will no doubt look at the option of doing it alone. They will also no doubt find that at anything more than $72, they won’t get the take-up given there are several providers with reasonable brand names offering at that or similar price. With hard drive prices continually falling, I doubt the consumer market is going to want to spend anymore.

Reflecting on the outcome of the meeting, I suppose I should have advised him to read the proposal. On the other had, I know this is a weakness in our proposal, so highlighting it wasn’t going to be to my advantage. This sales stuff is interesting. I now need to wait it out and if he comes back 10% stick to my guns because I know he doesn’t have other options.

The good news for the day is that Carbonite received a great rating from PC Authority today. Feb edition has it as the Labs Winner for Online Backup. 5/6 stars is a great result. It essentially means more bragging rights for the year, some greater awareness and promotion that we didn’t have to pay for.

So tomorrow is another day.

The IT industry doesn’t seem to be much different. Most contacts at the key ISPs that I have been targeting have also been away this week, some won’t be coming back till the second half of the month.

Regardless, I have spent some time planning this week, looking for some new markets to target and sourcing contacts that I should talk to. I have also spent some time managing administration issues for Carbonite. December was a good month, we trippled our November sales, so this created some additional admin work that we need to sort a more efficient process for.

In January we are also running a promotion, giving 2 bonus months when you purchase a 24 month subscription. It will be interesting to see how this goes. The December promotion worked well. We also hope to launch Carbonite to our AVG clients by the end of the month, offering them 3 bonus months when they subscribe. This should also add to site traffic and build awareness of the program.

Demand from Resellers is also picking up. Unfortunately our reseller system is not yet ready. The reseller program will really kick things along for us as they will be promoting the program for us. At the moment we only have the website from a promotional perspective as well as a growing trial database to work with. Adding the reseller program will make a big difference. It certainly makes a difference for AVG.

In the evenings after the kids are asleep, I have also spent some time researching a few personal projects of mine. One is foreign audio children DVDs. Having a Greek background I have tried to raise my children with Greek as their first language. Hopefully this will mean that they can learn to speak it and continue to speak it as they enter early schooling.

Something I have discovered is that buying DVDs with Greek audio can be very expensive. You could be paying $30 – $40 for a Disney DVD. What I also discovered however is that many Disney DVDs come with foreign audio so you can pick up a DVD at Big W for $13 that may also have Greek as the audio. Now I think there is a market for this sort of thing. So I have looked at developing a website to source these DVDs and point people in the right direction. The site is Greekkidsdvd.com. It is still in development but over the next month or so, with some late nights I hope to have it ready. It will also cover Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and many other European languages.

Next week should be a much bigger week. See you all then.

Xmas has come and gone. It’s great being at home, even if you aren’t doing anything productive. For all of you out there that took lots of happy snaps at family get-togethers or NYE parties, now is the time to transfer them to your PC and ensure that they are backed up with something like Carbonite. The last thing you want is to lose them.

I think the PC backup movement is really catching on. I heard a friend of mine preaching the need to backup to an Auntie at a BBQ on new years day. She was complaining that she lost a critical document that she had to submit at a college she attended.  Once he mentioned backup, my wife stepped in and started to explain what Carbonite was.

A co-worker asked me this morning (first day back) if I had made any new year’s resolutions for 2009. I hadn’t really at the time. I suppose I always try to do things better than the previous year, personally and professionally.

From a professional perspective, I want to be a little louder this year. Make sure more people hear my opinion. Sometimes I don’t think it matters whether you make sense or not or that your opinion is particularly valid. People tend to listen to people who like spruiking their opinion. I think they also consider them to be knowledgeable.

I have no intention of simply having an opinion on anything and everything, but atleast for the key topics that I do care about, I will aim to ensure people know what it is.

I also hope that 2009 is going to be a big year for both Carbonite and AVG. We have lots of interest in both products at the moment and hope that we can transfer this interest into corporate relationsjhips and happy customers.

Hronia Pola and happy new year to you all.

This year I did a bit of an about face and moved into a sales role. I guess I have spent most of my working life dealing with sales.  I can only assume I have learnt something about this field. I guess it is a natural progression (or not).

I thought if I have spent so much time in and around sales, why not try it for real. So I did. Given the ‘World Economic Crisis’ we are experiencing, it probably hasn’t been great timing. Funny thing this ‘World Economic Crisis’.  The reality, is that we made and spent too much over the past few years. Where we weren’t making it, we were borrowing and now that we are finding it a little harder to make repayments. Our greed is to blame, simple as that.

So in this tighter economic environment I decided to try my hand in sales. Baptism of fire. In actual fact I think I have done OK. I am learning along the way. The industry I have moved into is software, marketing both Carbonite and AVG. I actually manage the marketing and sales for Carbonite which is an online backup service. On the AVG side of things I look for corporate level partnerships, essentially looking for organisations who have clients (lots of them) and who would benefit by introducing Carbonite and/or AVG to their clients. So ISPs are a key market for me.

Prior to this role I was with McMillan Shakespeare. Again in Product Management. McMillan Shakespeare is essentially an administration company for Salary Packaging services. Product development was difficult at MSA. There just was no process. Instead there were lots of ideas and important people who wanted to see them fulfilled no matter the realities. But it was interesting and working with A Podesta (CEO) taught me a few important things about seeing an opportunity and chasing it. I also had the opportunity to work on some key relationships with companies such as DSE, Harvey Norman and Dell.

MSA is a market leader in its field, but it was also needing to realign itself with its core strengths. It has been very successful for a very long time, but competitors have also been succeeding at its expense (in some cases) and so the market has become tighter, margins lower and a re-evaluation needed.

Next year will be tighter, everyone will be looking for a cheaper alternative, however we all still need to live. So if the TV dies, we will still buy another, maybe not the latest and greatest plasma. Through the work I do with AVG, I hope to be able to introduce AVG to lots of customers who haven’t been exposed to it. Hopefully giving them a great deal that will make them buy anti-virus for the very first time or switch across from a more expensive alternative.

Carbonite will also make its mark. Its profile will grow, we will settle and launch a few key partnerships that will give it greater exposure. Online backup is still new in Australia but the value proposition offered by Carbonite is fantastic. $6 per month for unlimited backup. Now we just need to wake everyone to the fact that if you have a PC at home with pictures, emails or other important files on it, you should be backing it up regularly. The simplest way to do this is online with Carbonite. Try it free for 30 days.

See you all in 2009.