Tuning sales operations for growthOuch. Your sales force just missed another deadline, putting launch of your new product line in jeopardy. What’s wrong? With a broader, end-to-end look at what they are doing, you might just find significant opportunities to help free up more of their time for selling instead of the other necessary activities that aren’t managed most efficiently and may be done elsewhere. Read more
Three ways to begin your presentation with a storyJim Schrager, a long-time veteran of the venture capital world, works with MBA students at the University of Chicago to improve how they sell their ideas. Students pitch their ideas to him and they tend to follow a logical path: the market size is X, if we can get 3% of that market our revenue will look like this in 3 years. Read more
How to convince customers to buy what you’re selling — even if you’re the “little guy”Often a company uses dealers or resellers to get their products to market. Enabling the seller in this situation means influencing someone who does not work for you to deliver your message and sell your product. This makes it more complex for the person responsible for supporting the sales team. Continental Tire has found a way to engage their dealers. Read more
Delivering and measuring customer service: This isn’t rocket science!Sales professionals are unique animals, but typically very competitive and passionate about their roles in organizations. They impart insights to potential customers and steer the prospect towards a decision in favor of their employer. Read more
New Sales Enablement Ideas – SAVO’s AMPs, Part 8 – First-Line Sales LeadershipThe first-line sales manager arguably has the most important role in any organization. Key performance indicators such as percent to plan, growth, close ratios and employee engagement can almost always be linked to the leadership, coaching and mentoring provided by the sales manager. Read more
Failing Forward Step Five: WhySpecific tools for performing root-cause analysis can be applied to get past the symptom and focus on the disease. The root-cause analysis concept originated in manufacturing and is often referred to as “the five whys” because Toyota discovered that, on average, it took on average of five “whys” to get to the root cause. Read more
Failing Forward Step Four: Let Go and Move OnConscientious professionals always want to learn more, but the amount of useful knowledge that can be gleaned from revisiting the same ground over again diminishes after a certain point. Strong leaders know when to stop. It will be easier to move on if the analytical work of figuring out what happened and the follow-up work of changing whatever needs improvement are completed. Read more
Failing Forward Step Three: Take ActionThe next in our series (see below for links to previous posts) builds on the work entailed in Steps One and Two, and is demanding on many levels. Yet it is not worth doing unless the organization is prepared to follow through on the remaining steps. Read more
Failing Forward Step Two: Determine CausalityIn a continuation of a series on learning from failure (start from the beginning), the second step is to determine the underlying reason or reasons for the loss. This means going through the long list of events assembled in Step One and determining which actually caused the loss. Determining causality is not the same as conducting root-cause analysis. Read more
Failing Forward Step One: Find out what happenedIn a series of posts, I’m outlining how to learn from a loss. Read part 1, oulining why failure is an effective teacher. Today’s post, detailing step one, finding out what happened, may seem straightforward. In fact, it is an emotionally challenging and intellectually demanding task. The team must dispassionately review the entire history of the procurement. Read more