Sales & Customer Service in the BtoB World

Two separate things or just different ends of a process? I have been selling in the industrial market since the "sixties" (yes, I remember them). Material handling mostly with a couple of years retail back in the "seventies". I maintain that sales and customer service is a circle...a flywheel that develops a momentum when done properly.

My perspective has come from being;

• part-time invoice clerk
• full-time office worker
• office manager
• inside sales person
• outside sales person
• start-up business owner
• general manager
• managing partner in a merged business
• sales and marketing manager of a manufacturing company
• member of the management team of a US manufacturer

I have watched my sales and the sales of those around me rise and fall for many different reasons. Among them;

• good and poor economies
• good and bad business plans
• brilliant and stupid business plans
• changes in markets and channels
• changes in technologies, products and processes

In the posts to come on this site I hope to outline good practices and explain how the "fly-wheel" effect works for a lifetime. The purpose is to improve, to become better. To become excellent.