Proxima B Flares Make Vacation Plans Unlikely

The Proxima B planet, our closest neighbor outside our solar system, has been a source of virtual
water-cooler conversation at Proxima Sales since early reviews made the planet sound like a pretty good bet for eventual habitation. Okay, perhaps it was never as close to hosting an AirBnB as we all liked to imagine but today's news is genuine cold water thrown on our team's favorite space travel destination.

Via Mashable we learned today:

The closest planet to Earth outside of our solar system might not be a place you'd want to visit. 

Researchers have found that the planet — called Proxima b — was likely bathed in radiation after its host star (comparable to our sun), Proxima Centauri, emitted a huge flare last March. 

“March 24, 2017 was no ordinary day for Proxima Centauri,” Meredith MacGregor, the lead author of the new study detailing the flare said in a statement.

The statement about Proxima reviews in detail the massive radiation flare that occurred on March 17, 2017. Described as, "an energetic explosion of radiation—from the closest star to our own Sun, Proxima Centauri, which occurred last March. This finding, published by The Astrophysical Journal Letters, raises questions about the habitability of our Solar System’s nearest exoplanetary neighbor, Proxima b, which orbits Proxima Centauri.

Proxima Sales reviews of Mobile World Congress sessions and participation in client product announcements on opening day, today, were not impacted in any way by the news that our mascot planet might not be such a great destination for vacation or relocation after all. 

Our teams, scattered across our current planet this week, for MWC, TechAdvantage, the CUNA Governmental affairs confab,  and several other industry meetings have agreed to create a special award to commemorate the latest science news, The Flare, will be presented to the Proxima reviewer of products, client, or staff member, with the best flare for creating productive and profitable new business outcomes on this week's trade show floors and meeting rooms. 

Kate Parker is on the road, reading science news in between meetings with prospects for Proxima Sales client solutions. When not in a hotel room, Kate can be found at the Proxima Burbank office.

@Proximasales

kate@proxima-sales.com

Artist rendering of Proxima B giant radiation flare.

Trade Show Booth Clowns and How to Close Sales when They're Around

It’s trade show season and in between trying to sort through my Proxima Sales reviews and case studies, our Proxima Sales LinkedIn company page and group messages, managing my tiny pile of paper mail, and trying to figure out the voicemails helpfully transcribed from the original Urdu, I got an email from one of the best trade show floor salespeople I’ve ever met.

Denise, is organized, has her subject matter sewn up and prepped into brief bits. She has non-obtrusive qualifying questions ready to sort those who are interested in PurpleHat from those who really want one of the cool purple hats, in short, Denise is the sales leader you want representing your company at any convention, conference, or annual meeting.

Denise is running into Clown control issues at this season’s meetings:

·      Her CEO drives traffic away from the booth in droves with his loud antics and aggressive approach.

·      His long-winded buttonholing of every passing human, in addition to making him someone to avoid, also keeps the rest of his sales team from sorting the traffic visually or verbally for qualified, interested visitors.

·      Mark also exempts himself from all of the badge swiping and booth visitor tracking systems that his sales management team have painstakingly set up–so even the good leads are likely to leave with a hat and no real sales contact. The team will go back to the office with a mountain of non-leads mixed in with the golden opportunities.

·      No-one can determine whether leads who were scheduled to stop by the booth to meet their rep and demo the software were allowed near a computer by Mark in the Middle of everything and everyone.

·      Mark also sees himself as a world-class stand-up comic? Oh yes. Each visitor is greeted with a howler from the CEO cheat-sheet of inappropriate and irrelevant ice-breaker humor from the 1980s (all described as unprofessional and probably illegal) in a workshop HR made me attend in 1995).

·      If a hardy and determined prospect makes it to asking for technical information on Mark’s company solution suite, they are more likely to get the whole life story of how Mark built “his baby” rather than the data, and business problem solving messaging, that could drive a buying decision.

·      In between running off booth traffic of all stripes, our booth clown motivates his team by telling them that, “if they handled booth duty like he does, they’d be out buying boats with their fat commission checks.”

·      This is not the first time Proxima Sales has reviewed similar complaints from high ranking technology salespeople. Sometimes the booth clown is the regional guy from Sacramento, but more likely it is the founder, CEO, partner, or the lucky brother in law, the no-training needed, Business Dishevelment director.

So what is the solution for the booth clown conundrum?

Well, there are tactics to try but none of them are without risk and none work without fail.

·      One option, favored by our current victim of the booth clown CEO is to decide that it’s time to take your highly valuable, productive, and marketable skills elsewhere. Did we mention that Proxima Sales is hiring experienced road warrior technology salespeople? If you join Proxima Sales you’ll meet Denise. She’s on our client’s booth team, now.

·      It scan be a successful strategy to set up a VIP hotel suite (even at the Days Inn) for offsite meetings for the booth clown during key exhibit hall hours. This strategy works best if you pre-schedule meetings with high interest, low probability (read broke) leads for the clown – a booth clown with an audience is a happy clown.

·      You can try to gently cue someone in the company, who has influence with your tradeshow booth clown, to your situation. The influencer may just be able to get him to tone down the circus act, at least a bit.

But most often, we see the booth clowns graduate from driving away booth traffic to driving away top sales talent.

In more than a few cases the tradeshow clown then decides that trade shows are a “waste of hard-earned money and time.” And he is right. For a real booth clown, staying home is the very best way for him to handle trade show booth traffic.

Proxima Sales offers outsourced trade show staffing and booth contact optimization services that a few wise sales managers have used effectively to keep the booth clowns away from the exhibit hall. No guarantees though. In our experience a true booth clown CEO will find a way to have his three days in the exhibit hall spotlight. For these companies, skipping the show and hoping that Mark spends the rest of his time in a more productive and less annoying task area may be the best strategy for success.

Proxima Sales team leaders are traveling virtually full-time, this time of year. We attend various conventions, industry meetings, trade shows, and conferences, in all of our major core subject matter and technology areas of expertise. The Proxima Sales team has a structured system for making each convention visit effective and efficient. We would be happy to share our system with anyone who wants to give it a try. But that’s another post.

About Kate@proxima-sales.com

Katherine Parker, Kate to her friends, has been closing major sales for technology and professional services companies since the road warrior’s best friend was a Compaq luggable. In addition to leading new business initiatives at Proxima Sales. Kate still makes at least 50 quality sales calls each week into the markets she knows best.

Proxima Sales closes sales for clients offering complex intangibles within the North American market and some EU and Asian countries. 

You can find Proxima Sales on Twitter  @Proximasales

Do you want to be a Unicorn?

The Techcrunch Unicorn Leaderboard of companies theoretically valued at over a BILLION dollars is habit-forming. It's pretty irresistible to spend a few minutes perusing the list, thinking about what our kids would do if their start-up companies made a BILLION dollars--right around when we were asking our folks for help planning a wedding, or borrowing a down payment on our first house.

No, seriously. Some Proxima Sales company salespeople are right in the twenty-something to thirty-something (bonus points if that brings up a theme song) sweet-spot of today's PR-prepped unicorn leaders.

But let's put down the rose-colored sun-glasses and look a little deeper. The Unicorn Leaderboard lists lead investors, but doesn't mention lead CUSTOMERS. Sure Amazon has done great never breaking even, but what are the chances that today's unicorns are going to be tomorrow's WorldCom or Industry Standard or eToys?

Uber is leading the list providing rides in someone's Toyota on the "sharing" economy. My last stay at an AirBnB property was really great. But are these Unicorns going to become as rare as the mythical creatures they're named after?

I can't guess. But what I know for sure is this: Proxima Sales builds sales revenue for companies that understand that eventually, like last Thursday, any firm that is sustainable is going to need to deposit revenue in the bank. We know that Uber, Snapchat, Airbnb, and the Unicorn Leaderboard bunch are making money and getting great brand recognition. It is awesome to be featured in TechCrunch and if you're really lucky, Adweek. But when you're a maturing company, one that has to deposit revenue not reviews or fresh investor rounds into the bank, Adweek may not help your sales as much as you hoped.

Today's customers--especially the B2B businesses that we serve and rub elbows with at industry conferences and trade-shows, airport lounges, and Southwest lines--have read Adweek, glanced at the leaderboard and want to know what your product or professional service is going to do to make their businesses run better, faster, more efficiently, or more cost effectively. They will not buy your solution based on your branding consultant's scheme, press releases, and the glowing write-ups on the online press.

Your potential clients, the ones who create revenue, need someone to help them sort the facts and fiction they've learned while doing their own shopping and research. They need expert assistance sifting the way down to a specific solution or service. They will buy from your company when someone helps them figure out that it is time to stop shopping and that what they figured out they want is a need your service or solution will fill well.

I hope Airbnb and Uber keep making my life on the road cheaper and far more interesting than Marriott and Enterprise rental car did before them. I hope the people making bank by driving and leaving the light on keep doing well enough to want to do their part. But, and this is a big but, when I absolutely have to be at the meeting in Provo on time, I'm going with a reservation at Townplace Suites and an Enterprise car from the airport. Just in case the Uber driver becomes a lucky unicorn between when I called and when I arrive. Just in case the Airbnb property is inhabited by an all new crew of bandmates when I arrive. Your prospective customers don't want to risk their business on whether they've done ALL the homework. There is too much information for anyone to learn; we help them make informed choices and investments, which used to be called 'selling'.

Tips to Deal With The Trade Show Booth Clown

It’s trade show season and in between trying to sort through my Proxima Sales company LinkedIn group messages, opening my tiny pile of paper mail, and trying to figure out why our main calendar thinks we are all in Central Daylight time, I got an email from one of the best trade show floor salespeople I’ve ever met.

Denise, is organized, has her subject matter sewn up and prepped into brief bits. She has non-obtrusive qualifying questions ready to sort those who are interested in PurpleHat from those who really want one of the cool purple hats, in short, Denise is the sales leader you want representing your company at any convention, conference, or annual meeting.

Denise is running into Clown control issues at this season’s meetings:

·      Her CEO drives traffic away from the booth in droves with his loud antics and aggressive approach.

·      His long-winded buttonholing of every passing human, in addition to making him someone to avoid, also keeps the rest of his sales team from sorting the traffic visually or verbally for qualified, interested visitors.

·      Mark also exempts himself from all of the badge swiping and booth visitor tracking systems that his sales management team have painstakingly set up–so even the good leads are likely to leave with a hat and no real sales contact. The team will go back to the office with a mountain of non-leads mixed in with the golden opportunities.

·      No-one can determine whether leads who were scheduled to stop by the booth to meet their rep and demo the software were allowed near a computer by Mark in the Middle of everything and everyone.

·      Mark also sees himself as a world-class stand-up comic? Oh yes. Each visitor is greeted with a howler from the CEO cheat-sheet of inappropriate and irrelevant ice-breaker humor from the 1980s (all described as unprofessional and probably illegal) in a workshop HR made ME attend in 1995).

·      If a hardy and determined prospect makes it to asking for technical information on Mark’s company solution suite, they are more likely to get the whole life story of how Mark built “his baby” rather than the data, and business problem solving messaging, that could drive a buying decision.

·      In between running off booth traffic of all stripes, our booth clown motivates his team by telling them that, “if they handled booth duty like he does, they’d be out buying boats with their fat commission checks.”

·      This is not the first time ProximaB2B has heard similar complaints from high ranking technology salespeople. Sometimes the booth clown is the regional guy from Sacramento, but more likely it is the founder, CEO, partner, or the lucky brother in law, the no-training needed, Business Dishevelment director.

So what is the solution for the booth clown conundrum?

Well, there are tactics to try but none of them are without risk and none work without fail.

·      One option, favored by our current victim of the booth clown CEO is to decide that it’s time to take your highly valuable, productive, and marketable skills elsewhere. Did we mention that ProximaB2B is hiring experienced road warrior technology salespeople? If you join ProximaB2B you’ll meet Denise. She’s on our client’s booth team, now.

·      It scan be a successful strategy to set up a VIP hotel suite (even at the Days Inn) for offsite meetings for the booth clown during key exhibit hall hours. This strategy works best if you pre-schedule meetings with high interest, low probability (read broke) leads for the clown – a booth clown with an audience is a happy clown.

·      You can try to gently cue someone in the company, who has influence with your tradeshow booth clown, to your situation. The influencer may just be able to get him to tone down the circus act, at least a bit.

But most often, we see the booth clowns graduate from driving away booth traffic to driving away top sales talent.

In more than a few cases the tradeshow clown then decides that trade shows are a “waste of hard-earned money and time.” And he is right. For a real booth clown, staying home is the very best way for him to handle trade show booth traffic.

Proxima Sales offers outsourced trade show staffing and booth contact optimization services that a few wise sales managers have used effectively to keep the booth clowns away from the exhibit hall. No guarantees though. In our experience a true booth clown CEO will find a way to have his three days in the exhibit hall spotlight. For these companies, skipping the show and hoping that Mark spends the rest of his time in a more productive and less annoying task area may be the best strategy for success.

Proxima Sales leaders are traveling virtually full-time, this time of year. We attend various conventions, industry meetings, trade shows, and conferences, in all of our major core subject matter and technology areas of expertise. The Proxima Sales team has a structured system for making each convention visit effective and efficient. We would be happy to share our system with anyone who wants to give it a try. But that’s another post.

About Kate@proxima-sales.com

Katherine Parker, Kate to her friends, has been closing major sales for technology companies since the road warrior’s best friend was a Compaq luggable. In addtion to leading new business inititatives at Proxima Sales. Kate still makes at least 50 quality sales calls each week into the markets she knows best.

Proxima Sales reviews our industries and closes sales for clients offering complex intangibles within the North American market. We also offers consulting, training  and a full range of sales support services for company leaders who have found that 'selling yourself' is harder than it might at first seem.

You can find Proxima Sales on Twitter  @Proximasales