Rob Smyth's Blog

I am often asked, what exactly does a Sales Consultant do?
This question comes from friends, my children, my wife; and rather scarily from colleagues.

Well today, I have just finished for the week and I thought I would reprise the type of activity I have done:

Monday - Early train to London

• Meet with a partner to discuss Siebel CRM in the context of a larger SI programme.
• Internal discussions on upcoming release of software
  
• Debate on whether I should be going to Kazakhstan
• Discussion on best method for modelling a customer's objects in Case Management

Tuesday - Customer Recruitment meeting cancelled.  So I am free to:

• Review notes on an internal training course
• Discuss my accounts with Sales Consultants in Technology and Enterprise Applications
• Determine last minute scope of solution for a customer across CRM, ERP and Technical Product plus Consulting Implementation and possible use of On Demand
• Produce revise cost models for a proposal

Wednesday - Off to Birmingham

• Follow up from costs discussion of the previous evening
• Brief team member on three customer opportunities
• Take a handover of an integrated web service demo for the following week
• Prep for Thursday meeting in Liverpool
• Check expenses have been paid
• In the evening off to Chester to see another team member appear in his new Band

Thursday - Liverpool

• A customer meeting to discuss Case Management and Call Centres.
• Beforehand a couple of technical questions were raised.  So a few calls around my old team (I used to work in technology for years) to get the up to date answers
• Drop a colleague off somewhere close to Liverpool Lime Street Train Station
• Off home, continue to work on cost proposals

Friday - Manchester

• Into my local office (first time in February - lucky it was a leap year)
• Set voicemail.
• Catch up on all actions that I haven't managed to get done.
• Preparation meeting for next week's customer meetings
• Book travel.
• Check I have been paid - it is the end of the month.
• Fill in my time sheet, making sure I record the write type of effort against the right account, hopefully with an opportunity.

Reading this back, it is obvious I like to work for my company!  The variety is quite clear.  Next thing I need to do is clone myself so I can get some free time.  However here is some of the things I did in my free time:

Delayed watch of The Last Enemy (Identity Conspiracy Theory)
Read a few chapters of Willliam Gibson's Neuromancer.

So even with my leisure time, I failed to get away from work as I look after the Home Office and work with computers.