The CRAP Report

Well, if you’re anything like me, you’ve spent your day with family and you’ve had your fill of turkey and bad football.  Hopefully you’ve also had the opportunity to reflect on things you’re thankful for.  While the typical stuff comes to mind for me – my wife and my son, their health and happiness as well as the same for my extended family, the usual is really no less important.  Every year that I spend with my family makes me truly more thankful that they’re in my life than the year before.  On a more professional note, there are a number of things that I’m thankful for as well, and what a better day to share them with you than today?

There are a lot of things that get taken for granted on a day to day basis that I think deserve some recognition today.  Maybe you’ll agree with me, and see them as things that you’re thankful for, too:

1.  I’m thankful for the BDR’s at AG Salesworks.  Hey, for the most part, The CRAP Report is as free of a sales pitch as it can be, but on this one I need to share a little bit.  I work with some of the hardest Business Development Rep’s in the industry.  The BDR’s at AG are not only a great group of people, but they’re great professionally speaking, too.  They care about our clients and they care about honing their craft.  They make a boat load of calls and pass fully qualified sales opportunities that our clients are happy about.  I’m thankful that they take their jobs seriously and when presented with tough tasks, they always rise to the occasion.

2.  I’m thankful for the CRM solution that we use, Salesforce.com.  We’ve used it since day one in 2002 and I’ve liked using it ever since.  Now this is not a commercial for Salesforce.com; you may be thankful for the CRM that you use and that is great, too.  Salesforce.com has allowed me to help my reps manage their lists, help my clients to manage their lists, and its given me and my colleagues the ability to run reports and manage our team’s metrics in ways that an excel sheet would just make mind-numbingly time-consuming. 

3.  I’m thankful for our clients, both past and present.  I’m thankful that they recognize and see the benefits of highly targeted teleprospecting campaigns for their sales efforts.  I’m glad that they choose us to work with, and I’m thankful that the technology that they bring to their respective markets makes people’s lives easier.

4.  I’m thankful for my colleagues.  I get the opportunity to work with people, every day, who I consider great friends.  They’re the best, and they make me better with each day I work with them.

5.  Lastly, I’m thankful for the folks in the B2B Sales and Marketing community.  People like Richard April, Mike Damphousse, Trish Bertuzzi, Brian Carroll, Ardath Albee, Robert Lesser, David Meerman Scott – these are all folks that have made an impact in me, both on how I do what I do, but more importantly, why I do what I do.  I hope that someday I’ll be able to help them like they’ve been able to help me.

There you have it – some things that, as Thanksgiving 2009 comes to a close, I’m very thankful for.  I hope you’ve all had a great holiday and had the chance to stuff yourselves!  Now, what about you?  What “professional” things are you thankful for?