I was invited to a local business networking party. It’s only for “…young business professionals…” so I’m not sure I qualify anymore! The events are hosted by NetParty and they promise (and I quote):

• The first two hours of our events are like an extended “cocktail hour” with passed hors d’oeuvres at many events, drink specials, and low music conducive to business networking and making new connections.
• Later, our events take on a more social atmosphere, with great music, dancing and conversation.
• Our events are held at the hippest and most interesting venues. However, the music is never so loud that you cannot talk and our crowd is generally comprised entirely of young professionals.
• We do request “business” or “business casual” dress for our events. With that and a fun spirit, you’re good to go

Well, I wonder how much networking will be business and how much will be social. Guess I’ll have to go! If you’re interested in the Boston Event, it’s next Tue August 26th at The Estate in Boston.

Here’s a free invitation. They also hold networking events across the United States so check out the location near you. If you’re coming to the Boston event, come say, “Hi!” But find me early, I’m not much of a dancer!

Inquisix members in New England have been graciously extended an invitation to attend a free lunch and sales seminar hosted by Dave Kurlan. Rick Roberge, who was the Inquisix Networking Night guest speaker, is a member of Dave’s Sales Consulting business and invited me to attend the last presentation. Dave is a best-selling author, sales consultant and great business speaker.

Dave’s talk will focus on three topics near and dear to all sales management

* eliminate sales hiring mistakes

* accurately predict future sales revenue

* have all your reps overachieve quota

The event is being held at the White Cliffs Estate in Northborough, MA from 11am to 2pm. If you’d like attend, please register HERE.

Thanks for the invite, Rick!

You know those days (no, those nights) leading up to the big presentation? I mean the BIG presentation, the one you’ve spent a year working up to? You’ve been planning the presentation, you’re looking forward to it, you’ve been role-playing what the other party is going to say, you’re prepping your team members on what to expect. And then it’s show-time. That’s how I felt walking into the room Tuesday night.

The setting was perfect - leather chairs, white linen table cloths and bookshelves lining the walls. Just the theme we want our website to convey - the members-only club where business is conducted over a handshake.

What a great turnout - it was standing room only. Thank you everyone who attended!

We started the night with some networking and introductions. For Dave and I, who’ve been talking and emailing with beta members, it was great to put member faces to names. Then Rick Roberge stood up and spoke about why giving referrals is better than exchanging referrals and both are better than asking for referrals. No real surprise here, Rick was preaching to the choir!

Then it was our turn to walk through the Inquisix solution and answer questions. Did we have a scripted demo? Of course but as it is the members who provide the content, I opened the discussion with, “What do you like, dislike, find confusing or think we missed the boat on?” Again, thank you members for your participation! The discussion was lively, it was informative and it was valuable. The members that had already used Inquisix to exchange referrals were leading the charge and helping us explain to the other members the how’s and why’s on getting started - upload your contacts, search for prospective customers, make referral requests and network with members with matches.

The unanimous decision - “The more you put into Inquisix the more you get out and it’s worth it!”

Presentations like this are why I’m in sales. Wow, what an endorphin kick to feel the energy of a group of people all arriving at the same decision by the end of the night! They are ready to embrace the Inquisix way of exchanging referrals and bring their sales colleagues into the fold, too.

Happy Selling!

left to right -

Inquisix Chief Sales Officer Michael Kreppein, Sales Coach Rick Roberge, Members Jim Glynn, Mark Tremblay, Andrew Adams, Bill Perrier, Mike Sachleben and Dan Wilcox

Don’t forget - tonight!Tuesday, January 29, 2008 starting at 6pm

Our guest speaker is Rick Roberge, the great sales coach and mentor from Dave Kurlan and Associates, who will speak from experience on why giving referrals is so beneficial to his business….and yours.

Location
Papa Razzi
2 Wall Street, Burlington, MA
781-229-0100

Schedule
6-6.30pm - Registration & Networking
6.30-7.30pm - Rick Roberge, Sales Coach
7.30pm-? - Networking, Inquisix Q&A

Appetizers & cash bar will be provided.

Join Inquisix and fellow beta members for a night of networking!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 starting at 6pm

Our guest speaker is Rick Roberge, the great sales coach and mentor from Dave Kurlan and Associates, who will speak from experience on why giving referrals is so beneficial to his business….and yours.

This is an invitation-only event with limited space so please email me early for an invitation.

Location
Papa Razzi
2 Wall Street, Burlington, MA
781-229-0100

Schedule
6-6.30pm - Registration & Networking
6.30-7.30pm - Rick Roberge, Sales Coach
7.30pm-? - Networking, Inquisix Q&A

Appetizers & cash bar will be provided.

This is a great opportunity to meet fellow Inquisix members, learn about giving & getting referrals from a sales master and learn how to use Inquisix to its full advantage.

RSVP now - space is limited - email me for an invitation.

I attended a networking group meeting hosted by the Pawtucket Networking Meetup group. It was well attended by almost 20 people, some selling B2B and others selling B2C. The guest presenter was Marty Eerhart presenting his mini workshop, “New Business Development for Professionals.”

He spent time talking to us about creating our own Informercial about ourselves - something that Joanne Black calls her, “10 seconds to get a smile” when telling someone what you do. The people you are speaking to want to hear

• What you do
• What’s in it for them

Then Marty asked the room, “What’s the most important word in sales?” He received many answers including ones you’d probably think of

• sale
• now
• please
• final
• offer
• benefit
• discount
• value

and many others. He said, “Nope” to all of them. Marty says that the most important word in sales is BECAUSE.

What you do because what’s in it for them.

His reasoning? When you were a child and were begging for something from your parents, they turned to you and said, “No.” And as most children do, you asked, “Why?” and their answer, “Because!”

Why should I buy from you? BECAUSE…..what’s in it for me.

Anyone think there’s a more important word in sales?

Yesterday afternoon, we formally launched Inquisix private Beta. Many of you already received your invitations and are now members. It’s been a long time coming, but it is exciting to see so many people sign up so fast. The more members and contacts in the system, the better it is for everyone, so keep those invitation requests and contact uploads coming.

We have a lot of features and enhancements in the pipeline, but we can’t do this without you. Everything we do will be based on customer feedback, so please let us know what you think. Very soon, we will have Customer Forums up and running- you can have a real impact on making your product better suited to your needs!

If you are not a member, and you would like to participate in the Beta program, request an invitation. At this stage, we will not be open to everyone because the salespeople that join the beta not only need to share but also must have something in common – in this case an overlapping rolodex. If you sell into companies, industries or titles that no one in Inquisix does, then there won’t be anyone to trade with. So as we get a critical mass of salespeople that sell into the same industry or job title, then we will invite them all to join at once. You can help this process by inviting your sales buddies to join Inquisix too.

Happy Selling!

I recently attended a dinner event hosted by the Pioneer Institute where the main speaker was selling his dream to us - to bootstrap entire industries. He has a great vision to get entrepreneurs and companies to build amazing things - but with no government funding or oversight. Even the big companies aren’t interested in participating but he certainly has captured the imagination of millions. So who is this gentleman and how is he achieving this? Dr. Peter Diamandis took his inspiration from Lindbergh’s first flight over the Atlantic. Lindberg was 26 years old who no one thought would be the first one to cross the Atlantic. Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize, “…a $25,000 purse offered by hotel magnate Raymond Orteig to the first person to fly non-stop between New York and Paris…” and proved that entrepreneurs could outperform large corporations and governments. Lindbergh’s success helped launch the commercial aviation industry.

Dr. Diamandis created the Xprize as a way to foster the drive to achieve great things. He partnered with the Ansari family to offer a $10M prize to the first organization to reach space without government funding. That prize was awarded in 2004 to the builders of SpaceShipOne. Dr. Diamandis believes that prizes are a great way to bring a whole industry forward, not just a single company. He sets the prize money low enough for the big guys to ignore about but big enough for entrepreneurs to care. He commented that the day before a breakthrough happens, it’s considered a crazy idea that only entrepreneurs are willing to risk it all to achieve.  Change is brought from the outside, not from the current group in charge.

He now has Google offering a $30M Xprize for the first organization to reach the Moon and send back video. Again, no government funding is permitted. They’re calling this Moon 2.0.

More prizes are coming - prizes for the first 100mpg car, for mapping the entire human genome and more. The foundation that Dr. Diamandis chairs is looking at prizes to focus on improving education, on renewable energy sources and on reducing poverty. This blog does not do justice to what he’s accomplished and how he’s inspired so many people to do wonderful things.

Please go to his website to learn more, to be inspired and to build something great yourselves.

Thank you to Erik Britt-Webb for inviting me to the event and to Pete Peters, Founding Chairman of the Pioneer Institute for inviting such a wonderful and inspirational person as Dr. Diamandis to speak to us.

I recently attended a luncheon meeting with Mike Ford of TownConnect and about 150 other sales and corporate executives hosted by Dave Kurlan of Baseline Selling fame. Dave spent two hours with us discussing his philosophies on sales management best practices and sales rep hiring & success factors. The audience had the opportunity to choose the agenda based on our biggest concerns - sales management, forecasting, hiring & planned turnover were the most requested topics.

In reviewing my notes from the meeting, the things that I underlined as most interesting and thought provoking were:

- Hire sales managers for accountability, coaching, motivating, growing and recruiting. NOT for closing deals.
- Sales managers should motivate reps to get deals into the funnel and the coach them on moving deals through the funnel.

If you attended the event, what did you find as most interesting? (other than the tour of Gillette Stadium!)

I attended the first-ever Corporate Social Network Design Council hosted by Visible Path on October 29th in San Francisco. The concept of social networking was explored. There are some interesting challenges, but the emergence of thousands of social networking sites proves again that people want to talk to other people. Whether they decide to share their personal contacts with their business contacts is another story.

Check out Jeremiah Owyang’s post here.

Social networks can help identify specific contacts, but once that is done, we need to build the relationship and earn the right for the referral. At the end of the day, it’s all about a referred introduction. When we get the introduction, we get the meeting. And that’s what we want.

Now it’s going to be easier and easier to develop social networks. As of November 1st, Google announced OpenSocial. In non-techie parlance, developers can now use OpenSocial to create applications that work on any social network.

Get ready for the ride!