News aggregator

A computer hacker group continued a wave of attacks against Brazilian financial websites, hampering the sites of Citigroup and other prominent institutions.

Since Zynga generates the vast majority of its revenue through Facebook, analysts tried to use Facebook's financial results to figure Zynga's fourth-quarter earnings. But the models have too many moving parts.

Hewlett-Packard agreed to give its stockholders the chance to approve so-called proxy access through a bylaw vote at its 2013 annual meeting.

Shares of South African mobile-phone operator MTN fell after the company said it is investigating claims by Turkey's largest mobile-phone operator that it engaged in corruption to secure a deal in Iran.

Russian investor Yuri Milner stands to reap a multibillion-dollar windfall from his early bet on Facebook stock. But in return, he has agreed to terms that handcuff what he can do with his Facebook shares.

Steven R. Appleton, chairman and chief executive of Micron Technology died Friday when the high-performance airplane he was piloting crashed at Boise, Idaho's airport.

Some Apple devices were unavailable for sale briefly on Friday in Germany, as part of a patent tussle with Motorola Mobility.

What is Facebook worth? Analysts and investors are circulating a range of values, from $50 billion to $125 billion.

Stand-up meetings are part of a fast-moving tech culture in which sitting has become synonymous with sloth.

Facebook filed for an initial public offering Wednesday that could value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, putting the company on track for one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time.

Incoming Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai will need to tread carefully with the company's movie and music divisions, whose profits are important counterpoints to deep losses elsewhere at the company.

BT Group posted a 41% jump in third-quarter net profit, aided by further cost cutting, lower finance expenses and new contracts, and said it will reach some of its earnings targets a year earlier than expected.

Less planning, more legwork. That's the formula some business schools are using to overhaul the competitions they conduct each year to test their students' mettle as entrepreneurs.

Several Fridays a year, Warren Buffett entertains business students from all over the country who descend on Omaha, Neb., to pick the billionaire investor's brain.

The symbiotic relationship between Facebook and Zynga is creating riches for both companies, but their co-dependency also raises questions for both businesses.

A New Zealand court denied an appeal for bail Friday by Kim Dotcom, the jailed founder of the file-sharing website Megaupload.

Panasonic revised its forecast loss for the current fiscal year to more than $10 billion, which would be the second-largest ever for a Japanese manufacturer.

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there” Charles F. Kettering.

That quotation very accurately sums up my commitment to looking out and predicting what I believe is going to take place within the sales space over the next three to five years: I have nothing whatsoever to gain from making such forecasts; my statements are not sponsored; I have no revolutionary solutions, which will earn me millions of dollars if I am right …. it is simply what I believe, and I am unafraid to voice those opinions.

You may consider that my opening paragraph sounds somewhat defensive: If it does, then that is unintentional. Neither is it correct to surmise that I am in anyway feeling defiant – I have deliberately eschewed confrontation on this topic. However, as I suggested to my good chum and learned colleague Paul McCord this evening, I am going to challenge a blog post he wrote last week.

It would be dangerous to simply pluck a few quotations, as the piece deserves a full reading – “In 2012 the New Normal in Sales Is . .” but I am going to anyway, because essentially my interpretation is that he disagrees with my assertions regarding the rate of change we are witnessing.. and can expect to continue witnessing over the next three to five years. Whereas, I genuinely believe that there is a momentum building, and we can either adapt and thrive, or resist and possibly become isolated. I am not a lone voice …

“Customers everywhere increasingly prefer virtual interactions with sellers. Trend data reveal that sales organizations are shifting resources from outside to inside sales. Inside sales growth is 30% faster than their outside sales counterparts. The number of Inside Sales departments is projected to grow from 800,000, in 2009, to over 2 million in 2013.”

Dave Stein CEO ES Research (And lest I be accused of simply “extracting” quotes for my own argument, you can read the entire post HERE)

“Over the past few decades, selling has changed. The changes have been incremental, giving salespeople time to adjust. Not so today. The degree and speed of change in the sales world over the past two years is revolutionary — in how, why, and when customers buy and, therefore, in how you sell.

Selling has been turned on its head, and sales organizations are trying to catch up. If you have any doubts about the magnitude of change, just think about your level of control over the last major retail purchase you made and multiply that by twenty, and you will have a sense of the revolution in buying that is going on with your customers. The revolution has created a shift of control — away from you as a seller and toward your customer.”

Linda Richardson, Best Selling Author and Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson

“Inside sales has never been more important, and it seems like every minute brings new changes. Keeping up, staffing up, and preparing for the coming year has never been more important — and for that, you need the inside track. Our trend report is 100% accurate — loaded with great advice on tactics, tools and talent that will keep you on track and ahead of the curve.”

Josiane Feigon, President of TeleSmart (Download her FREE Inside Sales Trend Report HERE)

And most radically of all …

“There are currently 18 million sales professionals in the USA, by 2020, there will only be 3.6 million”

Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power

So, back to Paul McCord’s post:

“My argument is simply that in 2012—and probably for the foreseeable future—there will not be a “new normal.”

•Almost all sellers will find their offline activities will still be more vital to their success than their social media interaction.
•Getting out of the office and in front of prospects and clients will still be the primary relationship building and selling format
•More than likely business travel will increase again this year—and for the foreseeable years to come—including travel by sellers
•Sales jobs will continue to be created with the corresponding opportunities for both experienced and inexperienced men and women
•Social media will continue to be an area that sellers need to learn how to effectively engage—but the reality is it isn’t going to take the place of a seller’s offline activities such as cold calling, networking, and seeking high quality referrals and when a connection is made through social media, for it to be effective it will have to be taken offline.”

“In other words, for now and at least the next few years, the “new normal” will be the old normal. Do those activities this year that have been successful for you in the past and you’ll be successful again this year.”

“It’s fun and exciting to talk about the “new normal,” but the fact is not much has really changed.”

Human nature hasn’t changed since last year.

The phone still works and people still answer it.

Referrals will still get you more and better business than any other prospecting format.

You will still have to work to develop relationships.

You’ll still have to educate, be a real problem solver for your clients, and bring more value to the table than your competitors.

The world hasn’t shifted on its axis—yet anyway.

So take all the talk of the new normal with a grain of salt.  Don’t ignore social media and by all means use technology to the fullest, but if you want to be successful in 2012, pick up the phone, fill up the car, and hit the streets just like you did last year and the years before that.”

Yes Paul, and it took us ten centuries to accept that the world wasn’t flat after all!

Returning to Linda Richardson, and to quote from an interview she did with me recently (which you will be able to read in its entirety on February 14th – and no, no significance!)

“Jonathan is not one to skirt an issue. He is outspoken and clearly never satisfied with the status quo. His vision is to get a global sales conversation going. Top Sales World is a place where experts and practitioners meld and everyone learns.  It reflects Jonathan’s take on life: “Never stop learning. If you do, it is time to pack up and go home. Looking three years to the future, he sees a very different sales landscape”

Yes, I do very much see a very different landscape: I believe that we need to adapt; to embrace the exciting changes that are happening, not resist them, and hope that it is all a figment of the imagination of a few “crazies” I have been openly discussing these changes for three years, and I am happy that more and more well respected thought leaders are now seeing what I first saw all that time ago.

Final Word: “Some people make things happen, some people watch what happens, but most wonder what the heck happened” Anon

 

News: Exciting w/e ahead; there is a buzz in the air, and no doubt we shall see some responses here. Me? I do think it is important that we “commentators” remain impartial, so “Go Giants!!!”

As Facebook aims to go public with advertising as its main revenue driver, the task of showing that marketing on Facebook is different from everywhere else on the Internet falls to David Fischer.

Samsung Electronics, in its first acknowledgment of the European Commission's antitrust investigation of its patent licensing practices, said it believed the commission would ultimately conclude the company complies with the rules.