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Webcast

May 16, 2012

New research shows that few companies are focusing on sales territory optimization. Yet intelligent territory design yields substantial productivity improvements - as much as 10% in a single year - to those firms who embrace it. Optimizing account assignments, territory design, and sales resource deployment might be the single highest-return investment sales operations departments can make in sales productivity.

In this SMA webcast Mapping Analytics' Cindy Reid reviews prevailing territory management practices, identifies approaches that yield the best results, and offers insights into how sales organizations can implement optimal territory design to make sakes forces more efficient and productive.

Presenter: Cindy Reid, Chief Operating Officer, Mapping Analytics

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Webcast

May 06, 2012

iPads are portable, compelling, and cost-effective, and they are having no small impact on the sales organization. More powerful than smart phones, and more mobile than laptops, iPads have an additional benefit uniquely suited to sales: they are consummately social devices. That is, they offer an easily share-able user experience. Unobtrusive and intuitive to use, iPads are starting and sustaining sales interactions, and delivering information to mobile sales professionals in new ways.

In the scramble to deploy iPads, many questions remain regarding their use within the sales function. In this SMA webcast, we examine the sales force’s use of iPads from several perspectives, and articulate sales leadership’s priorities in making the most of this new tool. Drawing upon research recently conducted by SMA, the session will also detail key trends in iPad usage. Topics covered include:

• The promise of tablet computing
• Sales-specific applications: an overview
• Killer applications
• Management’s priorities
• Quick hit ideas for optimizing iPad’s sales impact

Speakers:

Bob Kelly, Chairman, The Sales Management Association
Cliff Alper and Tim Knox, Analysis Factory
Paula Crerar, Director of Content Marketing, Brainshark

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Webcast

April 13, 2012

Dave Hoffmeister, Executive in Residence at the DePaul Center for Sales Leadership, provides a research briefing on the important characteristics of high performance sales organizations recently identified in the Center's biennial Sales Effectiveness Survey. Conducted over a six-month period among over 3,000 firms in the US, the results of this survey indicate that only a few key organizational and operational behaviors are needed to drive high performance. Key areas such as talent, coaching, motivation, and development – combined with sales competencies, process and technology – drive superior results

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Webcast

April 05, 2012

Increased competition is among the toughest challenges facing sales organizations today. As pricing pressure mounts and customer budgets shrink, sales leaders must bring a new level of innovation to their efforts to beat the competition.

In this webinar, AchieveGlobal’s Greg McDonald and Colleen O’Sullivan illustrate how best-in-class companies practice a strategic process in competitive situations to close more deals and drive revenue growth. Together they will share AchieveGlobal’s research on the competitive landscape – examining proven approaches to help salespeople succeed in the face of rising pressures against competition.

Topics include:

• How the economy has altered the competitive landscape
• What to do to leverage this landscape in order to beat an incumbent
• Implementing a simple two-step process to overcome the challenges of competition: “assess and apply”
• Applying resources to learn more about your customers and competitors  

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Webcast

March 22, 2012

Is your sales team prepared to execute on your 2012 strategy? Strategy execution across a large sales organization requires tight alignment across six dimensions, including:

• Strategy: Linking sales strategy to business strategy, and
• Talent: Equipping sales leaders and professionals with strategy specific selling skills

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Webcast

March 01, 2012

Sports teams use playbooks to organize the complex set of activities needed to execute a game plan, providing a practical instruction guide for coaches and players alike. Now sales managers are adopting the “playbook” concept for constructing sales process guides. They’re finding that sales playbooks provide a helpful framework for communicating goals, coordinating selling roles, focusing sellers on important activities, and ensuring the consistent execution of sales strategy. Supporting the adoption of sales playbooks are several innovative technology platforms and professional services offerings that optimize and automate sales playbooks.

In this SMA webcast we review sales playbook design from a practitioner’s perspective. Presented by SMA member Louis Bernstein, SVP Business Development and Marketing at Izenda. He shares his experience designing, implementing, and managing sales playbooks in multiple high-growth sales environments. Topics include:

• Why a Sales Playbook?
• Playbooks’ Organizing Principles
• Playbook Implementation Best Practices
• Case Study Example

Sample Playbook Development Work Plan

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Webcast

February 23, 2012

New Approaches to Sales Territory Management

Managing sales territories and administering sales crediting rules are increasingly complex propositions for sales operations departments. Tracking sales by segment, channel, product, and sales job frequently means assigning credit for one sale to multiple sellers – sometimes a dozen or more in firms with large, overlay sales organizations. Along with added complexity comes the potential for friction, conflict, and inefficiency.

Common approaches to administering territory and crediting rules often involve homegrown tools, spreadsheets, and manual workarounds – a highly labor-intensive processes prone to error. New approaches and technology promises to reduce complexity, speed decision-making, and improve results. In this SMA webcast we’ll explore how technology is addressing complexity in territory and sales crediting administration, and also examine best practices, tips, and pitfalls to avoid when structuring account, territory, and crediting rules.

In this SMA webcast we examine:

• Why has territory management become so complex?
• Various approaches to territory management that companies employ
• Best practice approaches to addressing common territory management problems
• How technology can play a role in driving improvements

Presented by Varicent's Fred Sass, Director of Product Marketing, and Kerry Sokalsky, Manager, Solutions Consulting.

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Webcast

February 16, 2012

Your pipeline is big – really big. So big, you seem to mention it every chance you get: sales meetings, board meetings, customer presentations, cocktail parties, plant tours. In fact, you have a hard time shutting up about your big pipeline. And who can blame you? If given a choice, any sales organization would choose a big pipeline. Right?

Not exactly. The most productive sales forces know that emphasizing pipeline size can actually diminish sales performance. New research conducted by Vantage Point Performance reveals the true measure of pipeline quality. Vantage Point Performance’s Jason Jordan details these compelling findings in this SMA-hosted webcast.

Topics covered include:

• How traditional measures of pipeline size obscure critical sales performance issues
• An innovative formula for determining the perfect pipeline size
• New measures of true pipeline health
• Actionable strategies for improving pipeline management

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Webcast

February 09, 2012

Enabling the Sales Force, Optimizing Profits, and Improving Customer Engagement

Sales forces often stumble in providing proposals to customers. Offerings are increasingly complicated, and customers more apt to demand customized solutions; as a result, getting approved, accurate proposals in customers’ hands represents a real challenge to many firms. Many are addressing this challenge by investing in cloud-based CPQ solutions, which automate Configuration, Pricing, and Quotation. Getting CPQ right yields powerful advantages: it frees up expensive sales effort previously lost to less efficient processes, optimizes profit through improved cross-selling and upselling offerings, and improves the speed and responsiveness with which the sales force engages opportunity.

This SMA webcast examines the core elements of successful CPQ automation initiatives. Topics covered include:

• Identifying CPQ bottlenecks in the sales force
• Quantifying the impact of inefficient quoting
• Key benefits of CPQ automation
• Best practices and key learnings from high-performing sales forces
• Estimating CPQ automation ROI  

Presented by CallidusCloud executives Aleksandar Ivanovic and Chris Lesar.

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Webcast

January 27, 2012

What’s the first thing a sales effectiveness consultant (worth their salt) will build into a proposal? Ride-alongs with your sales organization. The reason is simple: direct observation can tell you almost everything you need to know about a salesperson’s effectiveness. Ride shotgun enough, and you’ll also gain understanding of bigger issues underpinning organization performance, like strategy, support, and process. The observational data, stories, and insights gleaned from working with salespeople can give consultants – or managers – enormous credibility.

In this SMA webcast, we’ll review the “when,” “how,” and “why” of manager/salesperson ride-alongs.

Presented by Catalytic Advisor's Everett Hill.

This is the first in a series of webcasts focused on gathering sales force performance data. The series focuses on analysis, observation, and benchmarking techniques used by management consultants, sales operations practitioners, and sales leaders to improve managerial insight into sales effectiveness.

Download Management Planning Guide.

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