In today’s business world it is not uncommon for many sales people to work from a home office. At first this may seem like a great opportunity, however, it does create some unique challenges.

Microsoft to Offer Sales Support for Novell’s Suse Linux… Huh? Did I hear that right? Yep, there it is again: Linux to work with Windows.

A June 2006 joint study conducted by Yahoo and the Consumer Electronics Association asserts that seventy-seven percent of all consumer electronics purchases were influenced by online research. The study also examines the role of search in consumer research.

The end goal of any sales rep is to close, close, close. From initial contact to making that call to seal the deal, a good salesman/woman should have little else on their mind then moving forward.

You’ve all been in the position where you’ve left multiple voicemails only to have them not be returned. Frequently the prospect can begin to hear the frustration in your voice as they hit the delete bottom.

Apparently I’m not the only one wondering if Microsoft is going to take a big belly flop with Vista: David Morgenstern at eWeek has a column asking “What if Microsoft Held a Vista Party and Nobody Came?”.

Kris Duggan recently joined Socialtext and shares some best practices for using wikis for managing sales.

Motions for summary judgments in Authors Guild v Google have been delayed at Google’s request, and will not be filed until January 2008.

The biggest mistake made by marketers is to give mere inquiries to a salesperson.

When marketing online there are some advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that you can completely automate the sales process and sell 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without one smidgen of human input.

Did you know your CRM might be naked? I never thought of it that way until I read this compelling e-book by Ardath Albee.

Two strategic investments and the accelerated release of the company’s new advertising system, Project Panama, provided a backdrop to Yahoo CEO Terry Semel’s assertion that a 37 percent drop in earnings is unacceptable to the company.

As you can surmise, one of the principal reasons why businesses find blogs effective as business tools is they help generate or increase sales.

The search advertising company has contended its practice of scanning books and presenting snippets of text would help drive interest and sales of books people might not find normally, and it is starting to look like Google was correct.

With so many different programs, and reruns and re-packaging of older programs, we can assume there are few people on the planet who do not know about Bob Vila.

Sales force automation, or SFA, is a term that refers at its most basic to automating critical sales functions like lead and account management.

Failing to focus salespeoples activity reduces efficiency and consequently reduces results, because there is not a salesperson alive that believes they have enough time in their working week to complete all the activities they want to achieve!

Advertising buyers in the financial and automotive sectors have been tightening their purse strings, in what is either a cyclical slowdown in ad spending that will perk up later in the year, or the frightening prospect that contextual search has beaten display advertising as the preferred method of grabbing eyeballs online.

Why pay for advertising that does not yield sales? Before you part with your cold hard cash, consider various ways to increase and maximize your conversions.

Some people believe that the job of the seller is to communicate and offer value, or to differentiate their offering so buyers know how to choose one product over another. I’ve also heard it said that the products themselves create value.

To deal with sales-resistant prospects, many B2B companies use white papers as part of their marketing mix. Generally, this type of report — which ranges from 5, 10, 15 pages or more — provides a case study of how your product or service solved a customer’s problem.