text:
Charles Saatchi told a London newspaper Tuesday that he went to police voluntarily over an incident in which he grabbed his wife, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, by the throat to avoid it "hanging over all of us for months."
The furor over the incident dominated the British press Tuesday, a day after Saatchi accepted a police warning related to the case.
In a statement to The Evening Standard newspaper, for which he is a columnist, Saatchi said: "Although Nigella made no complaint I volunteered to go to Charing Cross station and take a police caution after a discussion with my lawyer because I thought it was better than the alternative of this hanging over all of us for months."
Images of Saatchi, a multimillionaire art collector and former advertising magnate, with his hand around Lawson's throat were front-page news in national papers for a second day Tuesday, after they were first published Sunday. See the photos and judge for yourself.
Saatchi and his brother were behind a signature rebranding of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The Saatchi brothers' ad agency advised her to take voice lessons because her high-pitched tone irritated large numbers of voters. She took the advice and won successive elections. The Saatchi brothers also were fans of Damien Hirsch, Tracey Emin and other British artists, and advanced their careers by buying up artwork at unheard of prices.
Saatchi, age 70, looked stony-faced as he left his home in central London earlier Tuesday and declined to respond to questions from waiting journalists.
London's Metropolitan Police said a 70-year-old man "accepted a caution for assault" at a police station Monday afternoon but did not name Saatchi.
"Officers from the community safety unit at Westminster were aware of the Sunday People article which published on Sunday 16th June and carried out an investigation," a Metropolitan Police spokesman told CNN.
"This afternoon Monday 17th June, a 70-year-old man voluntarily attended a central London police station and accepted a caution for assault," the spokesman said.
CNN contacted Saatchi's company for comment but has not received a response.
According to a UK government website, a caution is issued for minor crimes.
"Cautions are given to adults aged 18 or over for minor crimes -- eg writing graffiti on a bus shelter," the website says. "You have to admit an offence and agree to be cautioned. If you don't agree, you can be arrested and charged.
"A caution is not a criminal conviction, but it could be used as evidence of bad character if you go to court for another crime."
Sunday People, part of the stable of tabloids published by the Mirror Group, published the photos Sunday of Lawson and Saatchi at a restaurant.
The tabloid's website includes the caption: "Nigella Lawson attacked in public by Charles Saatchi."
Earlier, a representative for Lawson confirmed that the chef and her children had moved out of their home.
'Playful tiff'
Saatchi gave his version of events Monday to The Evening Standard.
"About a week ago, we were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and I held Nigella's neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasize my point," Saatchi told the paper.
"There was no grip, it was a playful tiff. The pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place. Nigella's tears were because we both hate arguing, not because she had been hurt," he added. "We had made up by the time we were home. The paparazzi were congregated outside our house after the story broke yesterday morning, so I told Nigella to take the kids off till the dust settled."
The restaurant involved told CNN that its employees did not witness any such incident.
Lawson's Facebook page is filled with messages from fans expressing their support for her.
Lawson is known as the "queen of food porn." She has written numerous successful cookbooks and hosted TV shows.
With the furor making headlines, UK domestic violence groups made the point that domestic abuse is an enduring and widespread issue.
"Domestic violence is a massive social problem in this country," Sandra Horley, chief executive of UK domestic violence charity Refuge, said in a statement. "Last year over one million women were abused. Every week in England and Wales, two women are killed by current or former partners.
"There are still so many myths and misconceptions surrounding this horrific crime. People often think that it only happens in poor families ... but the truth is that domestic violence affects women of all ages, classes and backgrounds. Abusive men are just as likely to be lawyers, accountants and judges as they are cleaners or unemployed."
Horley said that perpetrators of domestic violence "frequently try to minimize or deny their behavior," but that violent incidents rarely occur only once and can escalate to more extreme behavior.
"Research shows that strangulation is a key risk factor for domestic homicide," she said. "Last year, almost 50 percent of the women we supported had been strangled or choked by their abusers."
CNN's Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report.


text:
Sat Feb 02, 2013 1:42 am
Sat Feb 02, 2013 1:43 am
Sat Feb 02, 2013 6:05 am
mysterytrainrideson wrote:A great song and a great moment in the history of music. If only Steve Binder had of captured the moment when Elvis sang the song for the first and fell to his knees- according to Steve's memoirs. That would've been great to see on camera.
Sat Feb 02, 2013 12:51 pm
Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:41 am
Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:14 am
rlj4ep wrote:I agree with so many other Elvis fans, this song is nearly indescribable. The performance, the arrangement, the timing, all make this a one-of-kind song. In many ways, the fact that Elvis did not sing this in any other concert makes this a real once-in-a-lifetime performance!
QUESTION: I've heard many stories and rumors over the years associated with the song "If I Can Dream." Did Dr. King's untimely assasination death in Memphis that year influence Elvis in any way to perform this song....OR perhaps influence the writers who presented it to Elvis? Just wondering. Thanks
(Words & music by brown)
There must be lights burning brighter somewhere
Got to be birds flying higher, in a sky more blue
If I can dream of a better land
Where all my brothers walk hand in hand
Tell me why, oh why, oh why can't my dream come true?
Oh why?
There must be peace and understanding sometime
Strong winds of promise that will blow away
All the doubt and fear
If I can dream of a warmer sun
Where hope keeps shining on everyone
Tell me why, oh why, oh why won't that sun appear?
Were lost in a cloud
With too much rain
Were trapped in a world
That's troubled with pain
But as long as a man
Has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul, and fly!
Deep in my heart there's a trembling question
Still I am sure that the answer gonna come somehow
Out there in the dark, there's a beckoning candle, yeah
And while I can think, while I can talk
While I can stand, while I can walk
While I can dream, please let my dream
Come true, ohhhhh, right now
Let it come true right now
Oh yeah!
Send "If I Can Dream" Ringtone to your Cell
If I Can Dream lyrics © IMAGEM U.S. LLC
Thu Sep 12, 2013 2:39 pm
Thu Sep 12, 2013 10:00 pm
Joe Car wrote:
Hosted by ElviCities

subset: commoncrawl


text:
If you give away 40% of revenue in commissions you'll be out of business faster thank you can say "stupid idea". Sales commissions are usually single digit percentages. Even software companies don't earn margins high enough to justify the kinds of margins you are proposing. Manufacturing companies gross margins are normally much less than 40% and that is before any SG&A or interest or taxes.
Depends on what you are selling.
Commish on mausoleum crypts/bronze coffins is about 40%.
Admittedly that is an edge case. Whole life insurance is almost as bad.
It's not about the % - the idea is ass backwards!
Instead of turning your highly skilled techs into sales people spend the money training your sales people to understand the tech. They don't need to understand the minutia but they should understand it well enough to be able to converse with a tech. Rather than having them hand off a client from one person to the next have your sale's guy be the primary and only contact point. They should never need to consult with the technicians as to how/whether something can be done rather only be able to understand and communicate exactly what the client needs.
I've seen this tried before and it turns out that it's a lot easier to teach sales skills to a techie than to teach techie skills to a sales person.
If you try and teach a sales person "enough to be able to converse with a tech", you'll only extend by minutes the time it takes for the techie to blow past their knowledge base.
Also, it might seem like it would be hard to find a techie to touch sales positions, and not that many like it, but the same problem occurs when trying to get them to be a manager. If you offer enough money some will go for it.
It really depends.
In some fields, there's just no choice about it. Like selling websites or custom software. If you don't teach your sales guys to basic restraints they're working with, they're going to promise to do things that can't be done, bid the wrong numbers, or do very stupid things like guaranteeing results on highly competitive keywords in seo projects. The approach I've found works the best is to actually sit in on some of these sales meetings, and train the sales guys to say what I say, do what
Not a great idea. I spent five years working post-sales in that environment.
The problem is that the sales people typically aren't motivated and view learning the technical details mostly as a waste of time. So they don't learn it as well as they should. Also, since they've been "trained", an engineer isn't as likely to be assigned to the sales person for the engagement. What you end up with is usually a sales person who thinks they understand the details.
The end result is that the post-sales engineer who ge
The technical teams already have their hands full supporting your systems and customers. Asking them to learn about pricing models and sales techniques will alienate and piss off a lot of them. If a techie wanted to be a sales person, they'd have signed up as a sales rep.
Your sales team, on the other hand, should be trained in the technology they're selling so they can answer customer questions. It's called "knowing your product." And if you don't know you're product, you aren't a good sales rep, just
The author said that customers were turned off as soon as they were passed to a salesdroid. Making salesdroids techno-proficient won't change that.
Also, salesdroids are in sales because they like sales and generally dislike (and even look down on) engineering. Every time engineering comes in and saves their ass because they sold some frankensystem, they learn that (1) a frankensale is a sale, (2) engineering MUST save their ass. Making them techno-proficient will only make them realize how much farther they
When you change the incentives of engineers to be the compensate them the same as you would a sales person. The engineers become sales people pretty quickly. It's just human nature.
The opposite is also true by the way, if you change a sales person's salary to the same as engineers they're change into engineers pretty quickly. Incentives matter.
When your sales people barely know how to turn on a computer and your engineering people are too socially inept to carry out a conversation, the danger is quite minimal.
... and your engineering people are too socially inept to carry out a conversation
Okay, now from TFA.
To clarify, our technical people are viewed by our customers as trusted advisors
So, the "socially inept" engineers somehow manage to convince the customers that they (the engineers) are trustworthy.
While the socially skilled sales people are unable to do this.
I question your definition because it seems to be the opposite. At least in the case presented in TFA.
I'd look at the root cause of why the customers seem to trust the engineers more than the sales people.
It has to do with honesty and the perception that the person you're talking to has your best interest at heart. People are generally pretty good at smelling a rat, and if your engineer is in the same boat as your customer - then there's a trust that's there that's generally pretty easy to work with. The problem breaks down if the engineer or sales person doesn't have a broader view of the coming problems, or architecture changes that might be necessary as this typically comes from pure experience.
Working for a large consulting arm of a large (now mostly defunct) technical company
I'd look at the root cause of why the customers seem to trust the engineers more than the sales people.
I would say this is pretty easy for most businesses.
Sales people are leeches for your money, and will do anything to get it, including lying about features and capability.
Engineers, especially those that work on customer support, are working with the customer to fix issues and get things accomplished. I can't say there is a better way to gain your customer's trust than to get stuff done for them. In fact if a company has a reputation of getting things done fast and efficiently, customers will be willing to
Having been both "sales" and "technical", I wouldn't want a "sales" person anywhere near recommending "technical" bits. Period.
My suggestion is to transition certain technical people to transfer into "technical sales", showing that they are from the technical side. My suggestion is for someone who's done technology for at least ten years, and knows general needs and can coordinate with the real technical people and put together a complete proposal that technical people can present together with the Technica
So, the "socially inept" engineers somehow manage to convince the customers that they (the engineers) are trustworthy.
I've seen numerous people associate "socially inept/awkward" as meaning "technically savvy"; it seems that much like eye-glasses have been stereotyped as meaning "smart" it seems that all Asperger's syndrome sufferers are all technical whiz-kids. I worked with a guy who was pretty average in IT, but had a very difficult time communicating, and was odd when he did: everyone insisted he was s
But when that isn't the case, the results are worthwhile. I work for a small manufacturer/direct seller and my duties cover both managing IT and marketing. From photography, to naming products, to deciding on the OS for the servers (Linux, obviously), and final decision on the ecommerce sites. Because we are a dot.com, this works very well, and I can see where some integration would be a very good thing for a very large company. The two ARE related, in that this affects how every single customer will se
Also remember, most companies see sales guys as their lifeblood and engineers as a financial liability.
Also remember, most companies see sales guys as their lifeblood and engineers as a financial liability.
This goes doubly for software and systems engineers working in IT. I can remember a meeting where management brought the entire IT staff into a big conference room and lectured us about being inefficient. Their reasoning: "You people are 20 percent of our workforce but make 50 percent of our payroll!". No kidding, considering most of the other jobs in the company were either senior management or phone monkeys without a high-school diploma.
At least if you are working at company who's primary product is softw
If you pay engineers a commission that a salesperson would have otherwise gotten, you have put them in direct competition with each other. That will foster animosity.
If you put in blanket rules like 'all engineers always get 20% commissions of inside sales' the salespeople will feel like someone else is caching in on their hard work, and in cases where the engineer won the sale entirely by himself, he will feel like someone cashed in on 80% of his pay. Neither person will feel like this evens out, even if it does.
Pay engineers to be engineers and pay salespeople to be salespeople. If both do their jobs right, you don't need to blur the distinctions in order to profit.
If you want an edge, here is what you should do: Train your sales people to be (or seem) trustworthy, to be (or seem) technically competent, and above all to regularly put effort into really understanding their clients' needs (or at least seem to). How much the client trusts the salesman is the #1 contributor to a sale. That directly addresses the root cause of the problem you are trying to solve. Also, allow salespeople to recommend engineers for bonuses based on sales assistance, and actually pay attention to the recommendations. That could help a bit too without creating animosity.
Our company uses an internal billing mechanism. Each sales person is allotted (x) hours of engineering time a month. Engineers are expected to perform (y) hours of consults with sales as part of their normal job (x and y are different because we have more sales people than engineers). Anything above (y) is considered bonus pay for the engineer and he earns extra pay at a relatively high hourly rate. The bonus pay comes directly from the sales person's commission. All engineering consults must be scheduled in advance through the project manager, to keep sales from killing our internal development timelines.
It works for us. Engineers get a chance to see the sales process, see what customers are doing with the product or what problem they want the product to solve, and a chance to earn extra pay. Engineers that have good social skills get requested by sales more often than others. The project manager is available to control the impact on our development. Sales people see the cost of having engineers on the call and thus are encouraged to keep it to a minimum or learn the technical details themselves.
"How much the client trusts the salesman is the #1 contributor to a sale."
I highly fucking doubt that. I would think that at least "meets an operating requirement" would be higher on the list.
You have to believe that what the sales person says about it meeting the requirement is true.
If this fellows customers get wind of their "trusted advisors" getting kickbacks for making sales, they'll be a lot less trusted.
If the OP wishes to compensate his engineers for their time, that's all well and good. But they need to be compensated whether they make a sale or not. Anything less is a conflict of interest for an engineer who is used to operating based on facts.
if you change a sales person's salary to the same as engineers they're change into engineers pretty quickly
Wow! Just think, we can completely eliminate engineering schools - just capture sales guys, stick them in a cubicle, pay them a crappy salary and bazinga - engineers!
I work for an IT consulting firm and recently I've been tasked with heading up our engineering consulting team — which without the fancy corporate speak means that we're trying to empower our engineering team to think a little like sales people instead of being purely service orientated.
Translation: We're asking our developers to wear more and more hats and now we're asking them to sell the product because our customer listens to them.
To clarify, our technical people are viewed by our customers as trusted advisors and when they see a opportunity for a complementary sale/network refresh/project they often involve our sales team, however when the customer sees the sales people, they always clam up because they're 'sales people' and customers think they are just interested in alleviating them of their money!
Translation: I hate it when my customer is smart. They're supposed to be stupid and buy whatever we tell them to. Now I've realized that prior deals have built cracks in the trust between our sales team and them so now we have to try to leverage our technical team as salesmen. Sure, it will destroy their credibility after a few deals but we have to make every bit of profit off our customer until we don't have any.
I'm interested in what the Slashdot community thinks of how we should remunerate engineering teams for this 'sales' work (which would cost us commission to sales people anyway) but in a way that doesn't foster any animosity between sales and tech staff because in the end sales people live and die on commission.
Translation: There seems to be some credibility we can capitalize on yet, what's the fastest way to do that?
Has anyone worked in this environment anywhere and what works/doesn't work in your experience?
Your technical team is doing you a favor and they sound like they're managing to stay technical. The phrase "technically correct" might seem foreign to you as you're probably used to dealing with "fiscally correct" more often than not.
My suggestion is to leave your technical team intact and trusted by your customer and don't try to turn your entire company into a sales team like Microsoft. Here's a helpful hint: your technical team will inadvertently become your sales team when what you are leading them to do for your customer is truly innovative and inventive and maybe even a little bit risky. Don't ask how you can turn your technical people into salesmen, ask how you can change yourself and your company's vision so your technical people can't help but logically be salesmen. If your technical team starts sounding like salesmen, your customer will simply stop listening to them and trusting them. You practically answer your own question and would come to the same conclusions were it not for profit margin motivations!
Yea, what do you mean by "thinking like sales people"? FYI, when I read about sales people being money motivated, I knew something was fundamentally flawed.
What they should do is find out why their sales guys have no credibility and aren't trusted. Chances are, it's because they're like a lot of sales people that end up pissing engineering people off. What they're doing here is saying "our sales guys are fucking us over, so how can we not blame our sales guys while making our engineers pick up the slack?".
Chances are, the sales guys are the typical "promise the customer all sorts of shit and let the engineers be the ones to uncomfortably explain six months down the road that the product doesn't do seven of the forty two things that the sales person claimed it did".
I'm confused why this response isn't +5 informative yet.
...too many offended 'non-technical' types.
The fact that these technical folks are not acting like salesmen is precisely why they are trusted. You will crassly exploit that trust only at your own peril.
Sorry, I understand what you're saying and why, but you're wrong on so many levels. I'm an experienced programmer/software architect and entrepreneur. Sales is a vital part of a company and I'm sorry that many technical people appreciate that more. They have an incredibly difficult task - selling is not about "telling people what they need", what sales actually do is to create buyers and this is incredibly complex stuff that requires understanding of decision making, the potential customer (their needs, pain and organization) and the technical details of the product or service you offer.
...but this should be an indicator to you that I'm one of your "trusted technical people" that will tell the customer the true PROS and CONS of everything even when it means my company takes a fiscal loss.
A good sales person wouldn't risk loosing credibility by withholding critical information or lying. This is not what sales people do. You need to understand that making a deal is not about presenting the features and non-features of your product/service and waiting for him to say "yes" or "no". Decision making is much, much more complex than that, especially in large deals.
In a well functioning company sales and development work closely together as they both have crucial information that the other department needs. The salespeople usually have in-depth market knowledge like not yet addressed customer pain/requirements that the developers could utilize to improve the product/service and thereby sales. You need to understand that the goal of the company is to sell more and the better the developers understands sales and their situation (the tighter they are connected) the better they can understand the selling process and the potential clients and thereby improve sales. Likewise - if sales can understand the technical details of the product better - they address the needs of the potential clients better in the vision they give them of the solution - increasing sales.
You need to understand that companies don't have goals. The goal of whoever is controlling the board is what is relevant. If their goal is to milk the company for short-term gain then salespeople need to lie. If their goal is to keep the company continually producing profit for years then they need to tell the truth. If the only goal is to "sell more" then someone is seriously fucking stupid because "profit more" is what we really want. Selling more is a means to an end, not an end itself.
I'm not sure that you really understand the basics of how companies in a standard market economy work. Companies absolutely have goals. The implicit goal is of course to make profit and they also have other broad visions and mission statements. Here is the Coca Cola Company's mission statement [thecoca-colacompany.com] for example. The boards function not to "milk the company for short-term gain" as you describe it but their purpose is the exact opposite - to set up long-term goals for the company and make sure those are maintained.
A good sales person wouldn't risk loosing credibility by withholding critical information or lying. This is not what sales people do. You need to understand that making a deal is not about presenting the features and non-features of your product/service and waiting for him to say "yes" or "no". Decision making is much, much more complex than that, especially in large deals.
Maybe your "software entrepreneur" business is so small it doesn't happen to you, but every large company I've seen the sales organization is about two things, finding as many things the customer could possibly want and then pushing whatever product the company has in that area. If they need an invoicing system, by gods you'll sell them your invoicing system. In larger systems even the consultants have trouble keeping up with all the modules and what they do, the sales people get a few powerpoint presentati
"A good sales person wouldn't risk loosing credibility by withholding critical information or lying. This is not what sales people do."
Holy fucking shit is that not true.
So you want your engineers to stop acting purely as trusted advisors, and start thinking more about how they might push your own companies products. That seems like a good way to have your clients stop trusting your engineers. If your product is the best for the job, they should already be advising the clients to use it.
I mean, it's a tough economy, you gotta do what you gotta do. But still, I'm not sure you're going to get a lot of good advice on here.
At least senior engineers? And they have less education and get free lunches, drinks, and travel, too? I'm aghast! The world turned upside down!
You notice that engineers are never the ones being sent by the company on a two week annual retreat to a tropical resort to celebrate and reward having done their job while the sales guys put in weeks of extra long days, nights, and weekends to make important milestones.
The most effective way to incentivize your employees is to have good management which is capable of recognizing not only quantitative contributions to the bottom line, but qualitative contributions, and who consistently rewards such contributions - ideally with a relatively short feedback loop. Companies where the employees can trust management to treat them fairly find the employees pretty well motivated.
Regrettably, many companies don't meet the prerequisite of having good management, so the point may
Our entire sales staff consists of engineers. You know the type - got good grades in college, yes, but the social type of engineer, not the introverted perfectionists.
It seems to work. Yes they work on commission, but customers don't see them as know-nothing idiots. They all worked their way to a sales position by going through application support, so every one of them has the ability to help the customers troubleshoot problems, figure out solutions to new applications, and competently demo equipment.
It sounds like your company probably hired extroverted non-technical people for sales and introverted, detail-oriented people for R&D. Now it wants to take those R&D engineers and turn them into half sales people. That's going to fail. Hire the right people from the start and you'll find success.
If you insist on putting the wrong type of people in sales support roles, make sure there is a technically competent person to interface for them. A technical business analyst / technical marketing person can keep your non-social engineers from interacting directly with customers for the social feel-good stuff while allowing communication to flow unhindered for technical matters.
Ok, let's say that by some piece of luck your engineers become sales people. Good sales people, even.
Now they look around and realize something -- they don't need you. In fact, they don't need anyone else, because they can do the R&D *and* the sales.
If they don't have the power to fire all of you, they certainly have the power to take your customer list and leave to start their own company.
Of course
The trouble is they might have to fire some of them. Some folks are just not good at selling. They need to hire sales men with an atttude like that of a used car salesman.
These salesmen employ tricks like lowballing, timing and cheap financing etc.
Is to be allowed to work with the technologies that I want and implement all the features that I deem necessary. In essence, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY, allow me to ENJOY DOING MY JOB and I'll make it epic! There's only so much money can buy!
Beautifully put, sir!
And nothing makes me chew and spit out a salesman more than the classic "...but the customer is spending $1,000,000 with us so I need it this week rather than next week like you promised."
This is the point at which I inform the salesman that I can no longer work on his project as he has just personally insulted me by accusing me of not already working at full speed to get the thing working because, in his words, my work speed is directly proportional to the amount of money the customer
All of the big technical companies like HP, IBM, etc do what you are talking about, it's often referred to as "pre-sales technical engineering." It usually consists of engineers who have some development/support duties but are also made available to sales staff to bring in to their clients when the clients have a need but aren't necessarily sure as to what exactly are the technical solutions to that need.
For the most part those guys are salaried, just like all of the other engineers. I bet they get more bonuses though and I am also sure that different corps handle their compensation differently, there probably are some who get commission too. But, in the long-run paying them commission would probably undermine the customer's trust in their impartiality.
So your customers think salespeople are there only to sell them things they may not need, and your sales people live and die by commission?
Surely there's your problem.
If you're paying for sales, surely whoever makes the sale should make the money. And if you're paying people to sell, who then cannot sell because they have no neutrality, why not rethink your compensation structure?
So your customers think salespeople are there only to sell them things they may not need, and your sales people live and die by commission?
Surely there's your problem.
If you're paying for sales, surely whoever makes the sale should make the money. And if you're paying people to sell, who then cannot sell because they have no neutrality, why not rethink your compensation structure?
Making salespeople live by commissions is an outdated business model. It makes savvy customers react just the way described. Is this guy looking out for my interests or his bank account?
You don't want your company lumped in with car salesmen in customer's heads.
...or sometimes a Solution Architect.
Most big tech companies (think SAP, Oracle, IBM, Red Hat) have a specific role for this. It is someone who could be an engineer but is specifically assigned to the sales process. Once the sales person has found the lead, the SE works with the customer to identify their needs and how best to meet them with the company's products. The sales person writes the deal and handles all the "sales" stuff.
Oh, and the SE gets a set percentage of the commission.
Sales people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about???
Don't laugh. The company I currently work for is filled with Sales Engineers, most who have Engineering degrees and professional designations (P.Eng in Canada, P.E. in the US, etc.)
If selling product was the core focus of the company, our sales force would be nothing more than a bunch of trained monkeys with product catalogs, whereas our trained monkeys can solve differential equations as well.
It's a good role. They have the engineering know-how to solve problems, understand issues that the customer is faci
And they used to exist in a lot of industrial marketing lines. A good idea that got chopped by short-term management philosophies directed toward wall street performance. Basically, it's an engineer that promotes sales of the product by facilitating its use, suggesting good applications, etc.
As far as compensating? They are part of the sales staff. Maybe geared more towards salary and less toward commission, because their role is more directed toward long-term market growth than the main sales force, but yes they should be compensated for scoring the big deals too.
...merely to see that look on your once-smug face when you wrap that commission-funded Porsche of yours round the nearest lamp-post after one too many bottles of Pinot Grigot at your expenses-funded lunches.
Here's how it should work:
1. You tell me what you need and when you need it by.
2. I laugh in your face and tell you what you really need and when you can have it by.
3. You get two phone calls or two emails to me between now and the deadline to ask me "How's it going?" Any more than that and I get 10% of your commission for each additional call or email over the limit.
4. You are a salesman, you deal with persuasion and lies. I am a techician, I deal with reality and fact. So don't try to get all technical on me because you read 5 pages of the product manual.
5. When it's ready, I will call you and you can have it. It will leave my lab working but if it's broke when it gets to site, you lose 10% of your commission immediately plus 10% for each 4-hour period I have to spend on making it work again.
That's it. Simple.
In a former life, I ran the technical sales organization for a company I started with some friends, and later sold to a much larger organization. So I've seen a couple of different models for how to do this.
The first question is - how are your sales people currently compensated? If they're compensated with a straight percentage commission, or something similar like a sliding percentage based on quota achievement, then the easiest thing to do is to also give your consulting engineers a straight commission on add-on deals that they are involved in. That percentage is typically a fraction of what the sales person makes - for example, if your sales people get 10% commission, then the technical presales folks get between 1-3%. It's critical to understand that the sales person also needs to get their commission, and the SE/presales guy is getting his cut almost like a bonus for bringing the opportunity to the sales person's attention.
This can get tricky, though, because what happens if you have multiple engineers working on one account? You can't very well pay every presales guy who touches every account 1-3%, as your margins will go to hell. In those cases, if you want to keep doing straight percentage, you need to divide it up account by account as opportunities roll in.
The other way to handle that situation is to have revenue targets, and to pay people a bonus based on their achievment, along with a personal target. So, perhaps across all the engineers, they have a target to generate $1m in revenue worth of add-on business in a quarter. If they get that target, each engineer gets $10k as a bonus, plus a variable amount based on their personal contributions. This can cause hard feelings sometimes because it involves passing judgement on people's contributions, but may be more sustainable, and also helps align the presales person with the overall goals.
Which brings me to the last point - impartiality. It's true that sales people are often incentivized to sell things that the customer doesn't need, or at inflated prices, because of their commission structure. However, engineers tend not to think that way, partially because as a percentage of their income, commission represents a dramatically lower amount compared to a sales person, and partially because they understand that if they help sell something the customer really doesn't need, they're going to be the ones who have to implement it or help fix the situation once it's screwed up. Also, if you set the revenue targets to be communal, it helps encourage people to think about the business as a whole, instead of closing one gigantic deal.
Hope this helps.
in the end sales people live and die on commission
And you wonder why your customers don't like your sales people?
Instead of trying to work around a problem, why not solve it. Pay your sales people properly, and they might start listening to customers instead of trying to make every sale they can (without the customers interests in mind).
When we have customers approach us, we set them up with a technologist: they gather all the details from what the customer needs without trying to sell them anything. the technologist hands the details off to a sales person, who themselves MUST be familiar with the products/services the company sells, who contacts the customer with some ideas of what might help them.
Commissions are for people who don't know the value of what they're selling.
..."Our customers trust our technical people because they aren't part of sales. How can we change that?"
Some people will tell you the simplest answer is don't push your technical staff to be sales people, and there is some merit to this. I've worked in a lot of different "technical" environments, and I could count the number of technical support or engineering staff that "liked" sales on a single hand. But business is business, and if you can make more money, that only ensures their jobs stay secure. Engineers may not recognize this as a valid argument though. They will counter with "us being able to do our j
Hmm, I had no idea that Michael Scott was a slashdotter.
Rather than sales I'd suggest some kind of participation in profits. Perhaps x% of profit above $x is divvied up amongst staff in proportion to their salaries + commission for the year.
It should be clear to engineering staff that when they "make a sale" it's appreciated and noted, a slight nudge forward to promotion maybe, but I really don't think it should be a focus for them.
Trust with customers is important, particularly for repeat business. Your engineers have it, your sales staff do not, and your respo
Try thinking about where do your salespeople's work ends and when should other client-facing people be the main interface between client and company. Agree on a deadline and ensure the client relationship is "owned" in a way that complies with that deadline. I think it's important to ensure that commission is paid a fairly long time after the actual contract signature, so that salespeople are kept honest. On the other hand, I think it's important that account managers and support are given sales targets to
When I call my major vendors, I have a single main sales contact. This person is usually pretty darn smart about what people need and want. When we get to some details that he/she can't answer, they set up a conference with a technical lead (who may or may not also be in sales). While this conference occurs, I can tell that the primary salesman is taking hardcore notes and prepping up so he doesn't have to waste the engineer's time again on this particular subject. I've watched a good amount of these sa
Yes I have, and I do.
I am currently a VP of pre-sales, which is basically the technical role you are describing. Our people do services, and help with sales.
One good comp is to give the technical folks a bonus when sales hits their number for the quarter. This can be cheaper than just comping them straight off the deal they contributed to, and it's very effective as sales will often consult with them often, on lots of deals, which is difficult to track and quantify. You don't want to discourage that beha
that breed of tech person, who has sales skills.
They are fairly rare. I found out I am one of them. After jumping careers a few times to avoid outsource waves, I find pre-sales type work a lot of fun. I do more generalist type work now, though I still do direct project implementation work too. The most rewarding, and difficult part happens to be the project planning where sales has sold something, and the customer expectations need to be managed. Often, these two are different, despite work to get agre
Get ready to fucking fail. Your customers will start looking at your competition. Short term gains will be up, but long-term, you're fucked.
Why do you think the salesmen are mistrusted and the engineers are trusted? Ever bother thinking of that? It's probably due to salesmen lying only slightly less than politicians for their bread and butter, and engineers being about as factually oriented as you can get. Sales types are hated by engineers for this very reason: sales will commit engineers to one lie after another without second thoughts, making things difficult. It's just a lie to the salesman, but it's actually something the engineer has to perform.
Furthermore, competent 'engineers' don't need to be told to "upsell" products. They'll recommend the most technically appropriate (per their knowledge/experience/etc.) product to the customer. This is not only why they are called engineers, it's why they are trusted. If you try that to try and 'improve the bottom line' you're a fool and don't understand your customers or your employees.
Furthermore, the competent engineers will become disatisfied with falsifying things or pushing products, and look elsewhere. I've seen it happen. If they don't become dissatisfied and look elsewhere directly, they're going to start asking for larger and larger raises because they dislike the work. I've seen it happen time and time again.
On the other hand... getting rid of sales outright might improve the bottom line, as well. It really depends on what you'll be having the engineers do. (Broadly speaking your requirements do not sound that broad.) Overall, I'd say axing 'sales' is a good idea. Keep marketing, kill sales.
i don't understand why sales people need commissions in order to do a good job. how about giving them stock options or bonuses just like everyone else?
surely a work force that's interested in furthering the interests of the company as a whole is better for the company than one that's only interested in their own well-being?
if you're getting a commission then you're less likely to be a team player, less likely to find innovative ways to collaborate with your colleagues, less likely to benefit the company.
Pay your engineers a salary, make customer consultations one of the goals and factors for career advancement and raises.
If you want to give them a percentage cut, give them shares in the company, so their incentive is to benefit the company, not just wring dollars out of customers.
I used to head up product and pre-sales in a company that we were trying to turn around. The way we got around the issue was that sales people had commission for each and every sale but for engineers, that was scoffed upon. So we increased the overall bonus bucket and made 30% of bonus of engineers and 50% for pre-sales engineers (Who also used to get commission for sales, but not as high as sales people) dependent on overall annual sales. The bonus was paid every 6 months so we could tweak it as we needed
As a 'consulting' firm, your product is (or should be) the expertise of your engineering staff. Your sales staff should be out beating the brush for new customers or work. Once that contact has been made, engineering steps in to deliver the product, so to speak. Engineering staff should be paid their salary, which is based on your hourly consulting rate.
If you are selling some other product or service, and not an engineering service itself, then contact between your sales staff and engineering may be optio
"...without the fancy corporate speak...
Thank you for not saying "synergy". It's Sunday and I have too much to do today to pull out my phone and start playing Angry Birds while nodding thoughtfully.
You need to sit back and look at your language, and what it says about what you're trying to do.
You have a team that's trusted by customers, and you want to *empower* *them* to think like salespeople? When your corporate culture has produced salespeople so lacking in integrity that your own customer base has come to the conclusion that those salespeople are only interested in "alleviating them of their money"?
Your technical team is working *fine*. Don't break it.
Your sales team sounds dysfunctional and bro
I was working technical support for a small software company in Oregon and I had a knack for selling some of the more complex (and expensive) features in our apps. One day I asked for part of that commission and the sales guy got really pissed. Well that was the last call I ever helped their entire dept with.
The solution is not to turn your consultants in to sales people, or to attempt to coerce them into becoming an extension of sales.
As others have pointed out, this is how it works everywhere in the industry.
If you are a product company, and you have a consulting staff, you don't "pollute" them by having them also overtly serve the sales organization, you use them as your "feet on the ground" to gather intel about what is going on inside the customer account and to help you figure out how to best align your (
you're halfway to sales already.
Thufir's a Harkonnen now.


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John Paul II: Global leader
Pope John Paul II's work for peace in response to Communism and terrorism is one of the highlights of his papacy. What one part of JPII's legacy is most significant to you?
I grew up in the 1970s and '80s at a time when global events were strongly influenced by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the early years of Pope John Paul II's papacy, there were many—myself included—who feared that a crisis in Europe or elsewhere could draw the two nations into a conflict that could only end with what war planners of the time called MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction. Yet by the time the pope died in 2005, the Soviet Union no longer existed and many of the nations of Eastern Europe—including John Paul's beloved Poland—had managed a difficult transition to both democracy and capitalism.
While Communism's own "internal contradictions," as a Marxist might put it, were largely responsible for its collapse, Pope John Paul II played an important role in ensuring that this collapse did not descend into chaos and violence. The pope's well-known support for the Solidarity trade union movement was not merely a reflection of national pride or anti-communism. It also reflected Catholic social teaching's traditional emphasis on mediating institutions—churches, trade unions, civic organizations—that stand between the individual and the state. In Eastern Europe, these institutions drew strength from Pope John Paul's attention and support. He and they thus played a critical role in ensuring that there were individuals and organizations ready to step into the vacuum created by the fall of Communism.
—Peter Nixon, a U.S. Catholic contributor
So much of our nation was in turmoil after the 9-11 attacks almost 10 years ago. The call for revenge (called "justice") was intense. Through my office window, I had watched the billowing black smoke coming from the Pentagon so I understood that instinct. My Catholic faith, however, led me in a different direction. One of the major spokespeople for peace in those days was Pope John Paul II, and I will always be grateful that he gave voice to my faith. As our nation approached the Iraq War, many of us stood on the streets of Washington holding signs that quoted him calling war a defeat for humanity. I was proud to be Catholic.
—Stephanie Niedringhaus, Communications Coordinator,
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Read more about Pope John Paul II at http://www.uscatholic.org/jp2.
Read more about Pope John Paul II at http://www.uscatholic.org/jp2.
What one part of JPII's legacy is most significant to you? Email a short response to firstname.lastname@example.com. Guest blog posts express the views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of U.S. Catholic, its editors, or the Claretians.


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Tuesday, May 22Today's Hours:
Courier Article by David Locker
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Meditation Can Open New Awareness on the World
Do you remember those endless summers when you were young? Why is it that time speeds up as we grow older? Could it be because we were paying more attention when our experiences were fresh?Wouldn't it be great if we could get that feeling back again? Perhaps there is a way to slow things down. It is called meditation.
You don't have to be a Buddhist or a mystic to meditate, though the Buddhists have much to teach us about how to do it. They have been doing it for 2,500 years.
Meditation is often called mindfulness. It cultivates an awareness that can become a way of experiencing the world.
That's the goal, but it is not easy to make the time to meditate. If you think your childhood summers crept by, if you are a beginning meditator, like me, try sitting to meditate for 20 minutes.
But hopefully, it gets easier as you practice. Here are some books to help you get started.
Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.
If you were to choose one book to teach you how to meditate, this would be it. The author doesn't lie when he says it's written clearly.
Bhante G., as the author is called, has a gift for straightforward communication. How he developed this gift is explained in his Journey to Mindfulness: The Autobiography of Bhante G.
Bhante G. turns 80 this year. He heads a monastery and retreat center in West Virginia, but it's been a long way from Sri Lanka getting there.
Born in humble circumstances in a place too small to be called a town, Bhante G. was attracted to the monastic life early and was ordained a novice at the age of 12.
The refreshing thing about his autobiography is how he shows his own weaknesses and those of his teachers and fellow students. The one constant in his story is his desire for education.
This was to lead to his getting a doctorate in comparative religion and philosophy from American University in Washington, D.C.
Meditation was not particularly encouraged for young monks in Bhante G's order. It was only after he lost his memory as a result of an orgy of extended chanting that he took up the practice. The photographic memory he boasts of never returned, but meditation did work wonders for his health.
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
How meditation can help one overcome medical conditions is also the theme of Kabat-Zinn's first and, I think, best book.
At the time he wrote this, he was founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. In this book we see how he worked with people with heart disease, cancer and even AIDS to help them live with pain and often experience healing through the intensive practice of meditation.
Kabat-Zinn makes the point that by lessening their fixation on thoughts of the past and future, meditation alleviates his patients' stress. It is all about living in the moment.
Kabat-Zinn has a doctorate in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation by Larry Rosenberg.
The author was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn from a long line of rabbis. Influenced by the skepticism of his father, he went on to get a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Chicago and teaching posts at that university and Harvard.
The pull of those rabbis was too strong, however, and Rosenberg left academia to pursue spiritual studies in monasteries in Thailand and Japan, before founding the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Mass.
Larry Rosenberg is a wonderful down-to-earth teacher of meditation. He stresses how the meditator becomes an investigator of the way his own mind works.
This is how it seems to happen. You carefully observe the thoughts your mind throws at you while you are trying to concentrate on your breathing. After a while, you see patterns, and you get tired of the same thoughts.
If you think you might be interested in learning more about meditation, North Park Branch Library has invited local meditation teacher Mary MacGregor to instruct a class for beginners Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
Admission is free and no reservations are required.
Mary has studied with Matthew Flickstein, who co-founded Bhante G.'s monastic center in West Virginia and also co-edited Bhante's Mindfulness in Plain English.
David Locker is a librarian with the Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library. The opinions expressed in this column are personal and do not reflect policies or official recommendations of EVPL.


text: Streptosporangium roseum Couch (ATCC® 12428™) Strain Designations: 27b / Type Strain: yes / Biosafety Level: 1 General Information Characteristics Culture Method History Documentation Print Email Share Share this product Facebook Twitter Google+ Permits and Restrictions View Permits Strain Designations 27b Biosafety Level 1 Biosafety classification is based on U.S. Public Health Service Guidelines, it is the responsibility of the customer to ensure that their facilities comply with biosafety regulations for their own country. Product Format freeze-dried Preceptrol® no Genome Sequenced Strain Yes Type Strain yes (type strain) Comments Genome sequencing strain Medium ATCC® Medium 196: Yeast malt extract agar Growth Conditions Temperature: 26.0°C Name of Depositor JN Couch References Skerman VB, et al. Approved lists of bacterial names. Int J Syst Bacteriol 30: 225-420, 1980. type strain type strain Cross References Nucleotide (GenBank) : ABUU01000000 Streptosporangium roseum DSM 43021, whole genome shotgun sequencing project. Nucleotide (GenBank) : U48996 Streptosporangium roseum 16S rRNA gene. Permits These permits may be required for shipping this product: Customers located in the state of Hawaii will need to contact the Hawaii Department of Agriculture to determine if an Import Permit is required. A copy of the permit or documentation that a permit is not required must be sent to ATCC in advance of shipment. Basic Documentation Product Sheet Certificate of Analysis SDS


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December 14, 2012
Elizabeth Loeper
Assistant Professor, Nursing
Isaiah 48:17-19
Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6
Matthew 11:16-19
Sometimes we make things harder than they have to be – we "over-think." There are so many possibilities, so many distractions, that we can't make up our minds about what to do or how to act. In today's Gospel, Jesus even tells us that we are like a bunch of kids who can't make up their minds about what is good. So we go back and forth, endlessly changing our minds.
What is good? Isaiah reminds us what God says: "I will teach you. Follow my commandments and your life will flow. We'll always be in relationship." During Advent, we wait for the coming of Jesus – who shows us the way to eternal relationship, who embodies goodness, who teaches us to reflect upon the commandments and more importantly, to live them.
Today, there are nine days left until Christmas. We are surrounded by glittery lights and piped in music, traffic, noise, sales, and endless commercial messages to buy the "perfect something" that will surely make the "perfect someone" happy. Which parties will we attend? What will we wear? How will we fit it all in? What do we have to get? What is the "perfect" Christmas? Something we see in a made-for-TV movie? A commercial? There is so much to distract us.
And just as Jesus has said, we are a bunch of kids who can't make up our minds about what is good.
God will cut through the chaos. God shows us what is good. Today, let us tune out the manufactured sparkle and noise of the marketplace, find some silence, and go inward. Breathe deeply. Take the time to really think and feel what God is saying:
"Love Me. Love everyone. Do what I tell you to do, and your life will flow."


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Posted: Tuesday, January 24, 2006
On July 1, 2005, Rule 11 of the General Rules of Practice for the District Courts began allowing parties to protect from public view social security numbers, financial account numbers, and financial source documents submitted to the court in all case types. Parties must follow the correct procedure in order to obtain this protection.
Social security numbers, employer identification numbers and financial account numbers (referred to collectively as "Restricted Identifiers") are to be placed only on a separate sheet entitled Confidential Information Form 11.1. The Restricted Identifiers should not appear on any other pleading or document submitted by a party (except on a Sealed Financial Source Document discussed below). Pleadings and documents can refer to the Confidential Information Form where necessary, and the Confidential Information Form will not be accessible to the public.
The burden is on the party submitting a pleading or other document to make sure that all Restricted Identifiers appear only on the Confidential Information Form 11.1. Court staff will not be responsible for redacting any Restricted Identifiers from pleadings and documents (other than the Confidential Information Form 11.1 itself) submitted by parties on or after July 1, 2005.
"Financial Source Documents" (income tax returns, W-2 forms and schedules, wage stubs, credit card statements, financial institution statements, check registers, and other financial information deemed financial source documents by court order) are to be submitted to the court under a cover sheet designated "Sealed Financial Source Documents" (form 11.2 of the General Rules of Practice for the District Courts). This cover sheet must list all Financial Source Documents. The cover sheet is accessible to the public but the listed documents remain off limits to the public unless otherwise ordered by the court.
Tips for preparing and submitting Restricted Identifiers and Financial Source Documents: Make sure that your Confidential Information Form 11.1 and Sealed Financial Source Documents cover sheet (Form 11.2) are not buried in your submission at the time of filing with the court. You might consider marking it with a removable post it note or other similar temporary marker or submitting it on different colored paper so that court staff can readily spot it. If you are submitting proposed orders or decisions for the court as is often done in regard to motions, use the Confidential Information Form 11.1 if the order needs to reference Restricted Identifiers.
These procedures have been in place in family law cases for the past several years but were limited to social security numbers and tax returns. The revised rules expand the scope to include all Restricted Identifiers and Financial Source Documents, and apply the process to all case types. You will find the recent rule changes and the new forms on the state court website (www.courts.state.mn.us).
Parties and attorneys who do not follow these rules will risk public exposure of the restricted identifiers and financial source documents they submit to the court. They may also risk sanctions from the court if the exposure relates to another party's or person's restricted identifiers or financial source documents. Great care should be taken when submitting these items to the court.


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It's A Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod World
A lot of things are pointing to an imminent scooter revival; the price of gas and that business about carbon footprints, of course, but also the fact that folk like Rag & Bone keep basing collections on Mods and Rockers That makes Mick Walker's zippy new book, *Classic Scooters: 1945 - 1970* all the more timely. The Italian Piaggo company's iconic Vespa and the equally alluring Lambretta are the famous ones, of course, but there are many others whose names may be unfamiliar but embody just as much great vintage verve. Snap up a copy, pop *Quadrophenia* on the stereo and be transported to a simpler, much more stylish era. We'll meet you there.