Are you
truly satisfied with the results your sales and marketing people
produce? If you're not satisfied, please read on for some very interesting ideas. CSO Insights, a US sales research firm, released interesting survey results recently on sales effectiveness. CSO Insights interviewed 1,040 corporations about working with their major accounts. One of their results showed that if a company utilized a trusted account management methodology, the company’s results either noticeably or significantly improved 84.5% of the time. And yet only 33.3% of organizations utilized any form of a structured methodology. Of those that used any methodology, only 12.6% felt their methodology was optimized. They also stated that the best way to optimize any program was through an on-going coaching program. If you've ever wondered why your sales teams struggle to consistently achieve sales targets, despite investment in sales training, development and management, you're not alone. Despite best efforts, most organizations fail to achieve their full sales potential. This is because:
An example from the world of sport: Great athletes are produced by first identifying and then training a promising talent. But this alone does not guarantee peak performance. Great athletes attain peak performance from ongoing expert coaching. Even Tiger Woods has coaches. The same is true in sales teams. Peak performance is enabled by coaching. A Good Story Another interesting response to poor selling methods was written below by a COO who has been on both ends of selling. The response below comes from Darren Maynard, COO of NextLinx, a software company based in Rockville, Maryland, that specializes in global trade management solutions. What attracted my attention to this letter in particular was the fact that Maynard has worked on both sides of the ball, so to speak, first as an IBM sales representative, and later as CIO of LEP International, a global freight forwarder company. Dear Sir, "Our industry, (meaning the technology industry) has validly gained an awful reputation. The result has been a total lack of trust and confidence from the buyer. This has resulted in extended sales cycles, and a significant increase in the cost of sales. This, of course, ultimately reflects itself back in the value from the product and level of investment in innovation. We have to reverse that cycle and this starts with re-educating our industry. My worry is best reflected by the Deming statement 'you can't educate the unconscious' I went from selling for IBM to being a CIO of a Global Corporation and was appalled at the standard of selling among 90% of the vendors that called on me - including my IBM rep. Unfortunately, without role play, you never quite know how the person operates out in the field - especially the product focus versus problem focus. … I have also seen too many sales reps try to prove their breadth of skills by being able to handle most issues alone. Whereas, the IBM approach was always wheeling in experts, to show the company’s breadth of talent. Something I am still trying to teach. I also experienced having a VP Sales from Oracle, and the concept of teaching and mentoring was non-existent - he seemed to think his job was weeding until I weeded him." Sincerely, Darren Maynard Chief Operating Officer NextLinx Corporation Rockville, MD Your Sales Poeple Need Coaching Has your company ever experienced similar results from your customers, because of your sales and marketing people? If you are truly looking to achieve dependably high results with your sales and marketing people, then you need the right methodologies and processes. But more importantly, your sales team, and support staff need ongoing coaching. I guess you can see how strongly I believe in ongoing coaching of sales teams' personnel. If you want to know more, please contact me by email. You can also visit my web site, listed in my signature below. |
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