I get Seth Godin, Project Exponential, Fred Wilson, Nicholas Bates, Hugh MacLeod and Michael Port emailed right to my inbox (some of them daily). I had others but if I haven’t quoted anything from a newsletter in a month, it’s gone.

I read telecom Ramblings, TeleCompetitor, Channel Partners and Channel Vision. Of course, I write for TMC so I get the updates from TMC as well.

I miss Google Reader and moved to That Old Reader but its slow and clunky. Plus many bloggers have given up. (While Business Insider and Benton Foundation seem to write too much to keep up with.)

This blog came into my line of sight today: http://davidjaxon.wordpress.com/ It’s by the guy from ARS. It’s curated material for CEOs.

What are you reading?

Great blog about Too Expensive by Seth Godin.

It’s not that they can’t afford it. It’s that they don’t find it Valuable.

That means that you just aren’t telling them a story to justify the spend.

Level3’s General Counsel blogs that ISPs are playing a game of chicken with the Internet. The congestion that consumers suffer isn’t merely too many users, it’s ISPs playing games (like using Sandvine for dpi) and not managing their networks. It can have detrimental effects, despite what FCC staffers say about Competition is the cure for that. HA! What competition?

It’s a good read. Fierce’s version is here.

The “FCC is currently researching and deploying Rural Broadband Experiments to learn more about White Space in rural areas around the country. The program started at the end of January and the locations will be decided soon.” [source]

White Space experiments in the US are centered around schools and libraries as the hub of the community. Only six US cities are giving white spaces a try so far – Wilmington, NC; Pascagoula, MS; Cal.net in El Dorado County, CA; and even Kansas City, KS, home of the Google FiberHood. West Virginia University uses White Spaces to provide Internet on the rapid transportation system.

Interesting note: Delta County in Colorado did a Kickstarter campaign to finish off building their network of Carlson and Meraki gear.

Elizabeth Bowles of Aristotle.Net (and former WISPA President) rallied in DC recently to get the FCC to share that white spaces spectrum with WISPs.

“The FCC is poised to open more of the 5 GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use, though the exact rules for doing so are not yet finalized. The FCC, in announcing its tentative agenda for its March 31 meeting, said it will consider a First Report and Order that would revise rules to make 100 MHz of the 5 GHz UNII-1 band unlicensed spectrum “more useful for consumers and businesses, and reduce the potential for harmful interference to certain incumbent operations.” At issue is the 5150-5250 MHz portion of the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (UNII) band, whose unlicensed use is currently restricted to lower wattage and indoor operations.” FierceWireless

When you look at the stats about sales training, you wonder if it is worth it at all.

From Richardson:

• ES Research Group, Inc. estimates that 80 to 85 percent of sales training programs produce no long-term impact (after 90 days) and 20 to 33 percent of sales people do not have the capabilities to do their job
• Sixty-five percent of top sales leaders surveyed by CSO Insights said their top objective for the year was capturing new accounts, yet 67 percent of those same leaders felt that their sales team “needs improvement” in generating leads
• ASTD’s recent State of Sales Training research reported that half of the respondents felt that 50 percent or less of the sales training programs they received was relevant to their job

There is a huge disconnect between sales team members and sales right now. There are different types of sales people (i.e., whale hunters); different type of sales (i.e., transactional); and different types of buyers (e.g., RFP, purchaser, user, etc.). Matching up the salesperson with the sale type and the buyer is the only way to get the sales engine going.

Also, we are moving from an uninformed buyer to either an informed buyer or one with disinformation. Most buying begins with a web search, so the salesperson isn’t involved until some unknown time in the buying process. It is very difficult to sell today.

That said sales training can be useful. It shouldn’t be a one time event. It should be followed up with training and coaching. At the very least, the sales manager should be meeting with the sales team to break down wins and losses.

Providing training in the sales process alone is a good baseline, but the sales training should be specific or granular or in some way concrete to the attendee. (That’s why so little is remembered I think). Abstract and theory are for classrooms and research; actionable examples are for the street.

Even in my webinars – like the one coming up on Hosted PBX – I try to be as concrete as possible. I don’t think giving the slides out help at all especially when I know from personal experience that the slides will not be looked at in the future (and if they are, they will be incomprehensible). The nuggets are handwritten notes that are reviewed often — and put into practice as soon as possible.