Between the July 4^th Independence Day Holiday in the US, and a 17-day European Tour I am making in July – the month is going to be a little hectic. So the July updates have already been applied to the Mastering Technical Sales site, and the newsletter will be released on Tuesday July 10^th.

The July lead article is The PreSales-Sales Partnership. It’s an edited transcript of a Q&A session I held with about 20 presales managers at a recent sales kickoff. At the end of the piece I’ve included a page relationship summary sheet – that should help you judge the quality of the partnership between Sales and PreSales. It’s important, as without an effective partnership, everything and everyone suffers.

That’s followed by an updated version of 31 Great Tips – a TipA Day To Keep The Webcast Blues Away. It’s a collection of “great ideas” taken from my Remote Demos and Presentations Workshop. Unless you’ve already been through one of my Perfect Pitch Workshops I am sure you’ll pick up a few ideas from the sheet.

Ask John revolves around Presales Readiness for new product launches. So many companies are focused on just “getting the product out” that they neglect the sales and presales personnel who actually have to sell ‘it’ – whatever ‘it’ is! I encourage a more aggressive approach in demanding training and collateral before product release and setting up a stakeholder go/no-go meeting to get some leverage.

The July SE Book Of The Month is “All-In”. It looks at how some of the best and brightest leaders around the globe have motivated their teams – big and small. Once you get past some of the “well, duh..” obviousness there is actually a god concept hiding underneath it.

As far as the European Tour. I’ll be in Amsterdam on July 5^th, and will be zipping through Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and St. Petersburg, Russia over the course of 14 days – featuring some work and some play.