Sales Management Matters

Salesperson/manager ride-alongs are common practice; we’d guess almost everyone reading this has participated in one, either from the driver’s seat, or as a shotgun-riding manager. We wondered: how do sales organizations get the most out of these interactions? We asked Catalytic Advisors’ Everett Hill to present a webcast on this topic on January 27th. His presentation offered ...

Our members are thinking hard about sales productivity. Some are scrambling to react to unexpected growth; others to cratering demand. Many are re-aligning sales organizations as markets around them change unpredictably. They’re in turns exhilarated, terrified, or uncertain in the current economic environment, but their focus on making salespeople more productive is remarkably c ...

Inside sales hiring and staffing is exploding. Sales Readiness Group's Norman Behar points out in a recent post on SRG's blog that inside sales is now "increasingly sophisticated and the preferred method of selling for many products and services that were traditionally sold by field based reps." He sites a growth rate of 17% for inside sales staffing growth. Technology underpins the trend - not only by enabling tele-selling, but by reshaping the expectations of buyers, ...

We've assembled three pieces of sales coaching content from our Resource Library, and we're making it available free to non-members! The kit includes slides from SMA's recent Sales Coaching Practices Research, a Manager's One-on-One Coaching Session Worksheet from AXIOM Sales Force Development, and a presentation from Callidus on Building the Perfect Sales Rep. Get the free kit, or (as an SM ...

To understand the key changes and new trends in line-of-business sales, I’ve had plenty of interesting discussions with sales managers at different levels in the past year. It’s clear from these conversations that revenue, profit, and reliable forecasts are still the top KPIs for measuring the success of sales executives. They may even be job- ...

[This is the first in a series called Voice of the Manager, featuring guest posts from member practitioners. This post is authored by Nicholas Kontopoulos, Director Global Marketing at SAP. -ed.] I am passionate about fusing innovative business processes with technology. I have to be: that’s the only way the sales warriors of the 21st century can win. Think about it: Sales has become a very complex activity in the 21st century. More competitors, both local and foreign, are ...

Brad Stevens is the head men’s basketball coach at Butler University, and is already a coaching legend at age 34. His team competes tonight for the NCAA title for the second year in a row. Who knew he was a former Eli Lilly sales comp wonk? The NY Times weekend profile of Stevens described his responsibilities in a short-lived post graduate corporate career: Stevens’s responsibiliti ...