The only way that the sales process can get implemented is through communication with the customer. Salespeople usually think of this dialogue as sitting in front of the customer and telling the story face-to-face. Being able to see and feel the impact of the conversation, good or bad, provides the best way to adjust tactics midstream if needed. But a complex sale can’t be conducted face-to-face through its entirety.

OPM defines a couple of distinctly different types of interactions: one-way and two-way. Two-way interactions are where both customer and salesperson are involved in conversation in real time. This happens in face-to-face or phone conversation. One-way interactions are just that–sending an email, letter, or fax is one-way. Sometimes, it is acknowledged with a reply, in which case it becomes two-way.

One-way interactions can also be important in the sales process. A customer’s time will always limit the number of face-to-face or phone conversations that are possible, so it is much easier to get material in front of the customer if the interaction is one-way.

Both one-way and two-way interactions can be of high-value to a salesperson, because they make up a key component of any strategic planning process. Top level strategy is always played out in conversation between customer and salesperson, and that conversation happens through interactions.

–Excerpt from OPM: Opportunity Portfolio Management, the upcoming book.

Sales Automation Done Right (SADR) is Now Available as an eBook

The world of eCommerce is truly amazing. It took SalesWays Press several months to publish the paper version of Sales Automation Done Right and arrange distribution through Amazon.Com. Publishing the eBook version was much easier.

The first task was finding a reliable partner to convert the manuscript into the forms required by the eBook stores we had targeted to distribute. These are MobiPocket, a French company acquired by Amazon a couple of years ago; eReader, a subsidiary of Motricity and the Palm Software Store (operated by eReader). MobiPocket has its own proprietary format for text and illustrations, as does eReader.

We chose Scribe, based in Philadelphia and Miami to do the conversions. David Rech, Andy Brown and their teams worked with us to ensure that the book’s vital illustrations would be faithfully reproduced and usable on small PDA and smart phone screens. Scribe accomplished this by the use of magnified images that can be scrolled left and right, up and down to view all the information. They worked with us to create a system of hot links between chapters, sections and to illustrations to allow readers to move quickly to the information they need. They did a great job!

We worked with Jeremie Le Proust in Paris to upload the book into the MobiPocket eBook Store, and to solve a humorous problem that evolved over their use of the “customers who bought this book also bought” category. It seemed that the first few purchasers of SADR were also interested in purchasing other material that didn’t quite fit the same genre. We were hesitant to move forward with an inappropriate association linked to our book. We explained our position to Jeremie and he readily fixed it.

We worked with Jim Harvey, the head of content and developer services at Motricity to keep our project on track with eReader, and with Sarah Janoch at Publishing Dimensions, who manages the product library for eReader. Sarah helped us clear the last hurdles and publish versions on eReader and the Palm Store just as 1996 came to an end.

Some books are too valuable to leave at home on the shelf. The obvious problem is that most are too heavy and too bulky to carry around all of the time. The best example for medical professionals is the PDR, the phone book sized Physician’s Desk Reference that lists critical information about pharmaceuticals and drug interactions. Until eBooks arrived, these were impossible to carry around. Now they live comfortably in smart phones, PDAs and notebook computers, always available for reference at a moment’s notice. As eBooks, they can be digitally searched, bookmarked and notated without damaging the pages. Information links can make them even more useful.

SADR is the PDR for sales professionals. The paper version is not as big, but still too bulky to easily carry around all of the time. SADR is my CRM and sales automation bible. I refer to its glossary of CRM terminology frequently, and have book marks in about fifty places to help me when I’m planning marketing campaigns, plotting selling strategies, managing opportunities and looking for ideas.

To celebrate the publication of our first eBook, SalesWays is offering free registration codes for our SalesCycle Manager Software for Palm and Windows to purchasers of the eBook from any of the three publishers. Download a trial version of the software from the SalesWays Store, and send us the information requested in the registration instructions along with a copy of your sales receipt. As always, the Excel version is already available free of charge.

The combination of the SADR eBook and Sales Cycle Manager software is the perfect combination to empower you to unleash the potential of the SalesWays methodology and apply it to your personal needs.