copperr is an R package that connects to the Copper™ CRM Platform APIs using tidy principles. The package implements most key actions from their REST API described on Copper’s developer portal here. The package includes what you’d expect to see in an API wrapper: Basic (Username/API-key) Authentication methods, and caching for API details CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) methods for records

Comparing programming languages has been a popular sport for many years. I love this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, when he wrote: “ If you want to build a ship, don’t tell people to collect wood, or assign them tasks, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea “. So let’s see how each of the…

This subject came up again recently when a mate’s startup was raising fresh capital. I asked if he was prepared in case the investors he was negotiating with, recognising he is under a time constraint to raise fresh capital, led him into a take-it-or-leave-it situation. — Your BAFO Everyone’s heard of the BAFO — a commonly-used acronym for your Best And Final Offer — a.k.a. your “Bottom Line” — i.e.: What is the poorest deal you would still accept?

In case you’re reading this because you’re hiring for sales, and your idea of a great salesman is DJ Trump, then stop reading here. I got nothing for you. — “WTF? The dude’s clearly a genius salesman — he sold himself to a whole country !” Exactly. once again, the only product that guy has ever been able to sell — himself. He is exactly the kind of rooster you’re trying to weed out of your interview process.

This may come as a surprise, But I know who your first sales rep is. I’ll introduce you shortly. You already know him/her. You see them every day. — Silicon Valley lore would let you believe there are only two startup stories — billion-dollar unicorns and bombs. I’ve survived both those outcomes, but also lived through many other flavours of outcome — the good, the bad, and “depends who you ask” — in several decades of startups. …

You’re an engineer. Selling is alien to you, right? It’s the dark side. It certainly sounds like black magic when sales managers talk about it. Better hire someone who knows how to do it. Look, it’s really not. You can do it, even if you don’t want to. …

One of the toughest lessons in sales, if not in business generally, is that success comes from focus, and focus really means consciously choosing NOT to pursue some things — things that look a lot like opportunities. — A Lead represents a potential enterprise customer who has shown some interest in working with you, whether by requesting a demo or quote; or by responding to your call or email. Why Qualify Leads?

A Startup founder asked me today “Can you help me put some structure around our sales process, but I’m also wondering — do we even need one? since we’re intending selling through channel partners” Um.. the answer to each of those questions could fill a book. And for that matter does fill several hundred. How long have you got? — Anyway, I thought I’d write down how I really answered, in case it’s of use for anyone else. I basically sketched out for him the key elements of a lightweight framework for a scalable B2B sales model for any SaaS startup based in a location remote from its target markets.