You’re not their friend, you’re their adviser
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO As I write this, I’m at the Los Angeles Shred School workshop. At the front of the room Ray Barry is teaching 35 industry professionals how and when to best submit a proposal for maximum results. It is hard to describe how captivated the audience is. Ray is giving them information they […]
Read more »Do you brag or provide proof?
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director We are taught at a young age to not brag about ourselves. I tell my son this all of the time. Any time we brag about ourselves and our companies, our prospects are unimpressed. But why do 80 percent of sales professionals start each proposal they give to […]
Read more »Creating a barrier to entry into your market
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO In my most recent SDB magazine column, I ruminate on the low barrier to entry in the secure destruction industry. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t. First, as I stated in the aforementioned SDB column, established service providers should see barriers to entry as a good thing. Low […]
Read more »Top questions to ask in the decision-making process
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director One of the most challenging things in developing new business is identifying the stage of buying in which your prospect is and aligning that with your sales process. If you looked at the last 10 opportunities that you lost, I bet you lost them for failing to truly […]
Read more »What data destruction firms can learn from Apple
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO Recently, I read an article about how sales is changing in many ways. I could not help but draw comparisons to NAID members who are taking the same approach with great success. In the past, businesses responded to customers’ needs or problems. The key to success was finding the pain […]
Read more »What is your follow-up strategy?
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director In previous NAIDnotes posts, I have discussed how important it is to stand apart from the crowd of “shred-a-likes” in order to not blend in with your competitors. Unfortunately, an area that I see many sales professionals and owners blending in with their competition is the post-call follow […]
Read more »Zero tolerance on data breaches is inevitable
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the early signs of the consequences of data breaches entering a new era. As I have written, when (not if) those distant smoke signals become an accepted reality, data breaches will no longer be survivable. Though statistics show some organizations that have data breaches don’t […]
Read more »Get out of that slump
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director The summer has arrived here in beautiful South Carolina and it’s time for baseball! If I am not teaching companies how to grow their business or destroying stuff, you can usually find me watching my son on a baseball field. When I look at the great sport of […]
Read more »Why the case against Target may go to the Supreme Court
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO Within weeks of the massive Target data breach last December, privacy and legal pundits began speculating about class action lawsuits that would result. So far, most of those predictions have come to pass. Lawmakers made a lot of noise but nothing meaningful developed – at least so far. Hundreds of […]
Read more »Reconciling the conventional approach to ITAD reconciliation
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO In the upcoming edition of ITAK, the professional journal of the International Association of IT Asset Managers (IAITAM), I wrote an article with Kyle Marks (Retire-IT) about a series of recent events that have demonstrated the hazards of traditional IT asset disposal (ITAD) reconciliations, which have exposed great opportunities for […]
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