Sales people learn best from their clients. That makes sense. And it happened once more to me today. While explaining to a large key account during a product presentation why it is easier to define certain user roles and then adjust the software flow and access rights accordingly, I got a lesson in how to not do sales.

The prospect said that he does not like the role-dependent approach because I as a sales person was not only following one role. Depending on whether I am talking to an IT person like himself or to the CEO or a technical buyer I will play a different role and adjust my presentation accordingly. The same is true in their business, and a software that predefines roles will not give them more control but less flexibility.

Of course I was still able to find a way out of this by telling him that we only use the role description to make things easier to understand, and that we have enough flexibility built in.

Nevertheless I thought this served very well as an example of why predefined strategy and tactical approaches limit a salesperson's chances rather than increasing them. The key is to be able to use a set of tools and rules and adapt them, use them or not use them as the situation demands. Interestingly CUSTOMIZED Selling® from Nice Ventures is basically exactly what the prospect described, so even though he was using his statement against me in that situation, I liked it and did not feel at all challenged.

During a client assignment this week we had a discussion with a potential strategic partner (for technology co-development and sales).
The supposed-to-be partner had promised, following an initial two meetings a few weeks ago, to invite some lead customers to a presentation. The purpose would have been to find out if their clients are receptive to the products and if a partnership would make sense.
To our surprise, when we arrived at their location no lead customers were present. The excuse was that they had cancelled. Instead we had the pleasure of presenting to the VP Engineering and Product Manager. The signs were clear. A fake interest in a partnership and instead the attempt to check out things from a product management as well as a technology standpoint.
In addition, the CEO was not, as expected, present at the meeting, but some junior manager whose decision-making power was at max. just reporting.
Of course we were tempted to pack our stuff and suggest postponing the event. But then we decided to play the game and verify if what we suspected could be 100% confirmed.
After 2 hours it became clear – from the questions that came up - that there was no interest in evaluating the benefits of a strategic partnership but only in finding reasons why this could not work.
In retrospect I think we did the right thing because now we can clearly move on without wasting any more time, and cut out any further dialogue.

Question is, will this announcement of a country-wide WLAN system in Macedonia - which will cover 90% of the population and be used for telephony as well - could become a role model for other developing countries too. This installation is going to be the world's-largest WLAN infrastructure.
The economics here and the reliability of the system will be key - not only for Macedonia but for many other countries looking at such a system at the moment. The economics should be very interesting, since it is certainly much cheaper to roll out and support than wired or mobile 2 - 3G telephone and data systems. The US company Strix Systems (http://www.strixsystems.com/) got the job of installing a meshed WLAN network. The backhaul part will also be WLAN based and will be upgradedable to WiMax.
I would guess Macedonia’s officials will be busy with visitors from all sorts of “exotic countries” wanting to get a reference and glimpse of what they are doing. In that respect it might even become a trade facilitator. Probably none of the Macedonian officials thought about that intangible benefit beforehand. A multi-page ad in a BusinessWeek edition e.g. on your country's capabilities and attractiveness to investments is certainly not more effective but for sure more costly. 
A press article can be found at (in German):
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/mail/66527

Mazedonien bekommt weltgrößtes WLAN
Der Welt größtes WLAN entsteht derzeit in Mazedonien. In einem Jahr sollen über 90 Prozent der Bevölkerung an ihrem Wohnsitz mittels WLAN online gehen und telefonieren können. Damit wäre Mazedonien nach dem kleinen Inselstaat Niue das zweite Land der Welt mit annährend flächendeckendem WLAN. Bereits jetzt sind die mazedonische Hauptstadt Skopje und ihre Umgebung versorgt, womit fast die Hälfte der 2,05 Millionen Einwohner des Landes abgedeckt werden. Auch alle 460 Schulen des Landes sind seit kurzem breitbandig online.

Um alle mazedonischen Schulen ins Internet zu bringen, hatte die United States Agency for International Development (USAID) den Bau eines Breitband-Netzes ausgeschrieben. Der lokale Provider On.Net erhielt den Zuschlag. Mit Glasfaser- und Funk-Verbindungen errichtete er ein Backbone-Netz. USAID finanziert die Zugangsgebühren für zwei Jahre und die Schulung von über 6.000 Lehrern. Die Volksrepublik China und Microsoft lieferten Computer beziehungsweise Software.
On.Net nutzt nun das neu errichtete Netz, um auch Privatkunden und Unternehmen mit Breitband-Internet zu versorgen. Ein Zugang soll zehn bis 15 Euro pro Monat kosten. Die US-Firma Strix erhielt den Auftrag, dafür ein vermaschtes WLAN-Netz zu errichten. In zehn bis zwölf Monaten soll der Rollout abgeschlossen sein. Mit technischen Angaben sparen die Beteiligten, aber IEEE 802.11a (54 MBit/s brutto im 5-GHz-Band) dürfte für den Backhaul, IEEE 802.11b (11 MBit/s im 2,4 GHz) für die Anbindung der User eingesetzt werden. Das Backhaulnetz soll per Firmware-Update auf WiMAX umrüstbar sein. (Daniel AJ Sokolov) / (jk/c't)

In a recent customer assignment we had the problem of approaching mid-size UK companies (2000-5000 employees) in a specific market segment.
After identifying the key decision makers we had a range of approaches starting with a mail and followed up by a call to the PA of the key person. As it turned out most of those companies had a policy of NOT talking to any sales people at all. We were either put on a automated voice mail saying that they take no sales or marketing type calls, or even worse they just hung up. We had a clear problem with how we could get access to them.
After having gone through this rigmarole with about 30 of the top prospects with not one single meeting, we decided to brainstorm how to change our strategy.
It was clear that we had to get at least one initial meeting and then find out how we could best position the offering and approach the others. Finally we had at least a web presentation and as that did not work due to some technical issues (firewall-related we suppose) we managed to arrange a face-to-face meeting instead.
That meeting turned out to be very helpful as we were able to find out what the proper approach should be and how to position our clients’ offerings. Armed with that know-how we could relaunch the telesales efforts and eventually get things moving with a couple of face-to-face meetings.
The explanation for the NO sales calls accepted policy was the fact that they had been harassed not only by English and European companies but on top of that by an army of US ones too, despite the time difference. So they had to start taking hard actions to keep their heads above water. Bottom line is: US telesales will have a very hard time doing remote calls, and a first hand insider view is now mandatory to get anything moving. We have BTW not seen similar type of “protectionism” in Germany or France or other European countries. Obviously what helps there a lot is if you speak German, French, Italian or Spanish - in particular in Italy and Spain, but often also in France - especially outside of Paris.