Sales Management Matters

Ever tried to benchmark your sales organization’s performance? It’s not an easy or inexpensive proposition. Finding objective, credible data has usually meant commissioning research, or settling for an apples-to-oranges affair with poorly-matched data. Now SMA underwriter The TAS Group aims to change that with its new “Dealmaker Index,” a free tool that provides insight to both individuals and sales teams on sales performance and productivity. Too often, these kin ...

AchieveGlobal recently completed a comprehensive research initiative on sales effectiveness. The research is impressive in its scope: more than 1,000 sales and sales management respondents. AchieveGlobal Product Manager Mark Fears and study author Mark Marone will deliver a webcast on the research next week for the SMA community (the webcast is open to non members). We caught up with Fears and Marone to ask a few questions in advance of the webcast. [Join us Wednesday August ...

Creator of Value The role of a salesperson has always been fundamentally the same – to create value for customers. The nature of that value has changed over time, from a distribution channel in the 1800’s, to a source of information in the 1900’s, to a problem-solver in the 2000’s. And no matter where the profession of selling goes from 2010, a salesperson ‘s role will always be to provide some unique value to their customer, else the buyer will go to a catal ...

A sick compensation plan is often the harbinger of much bigger problems with sales organization effectiveness. Diagnose the the comp plan problem quickly enough, and you stand a chance of heading off disaster. Frequent SMA contributor Scott Sands details how effective diagnostics keep productive sales organizations clear of danger, while maintaining alignment between business objectives, sales organiza ...

We’re updating a research effort that met with lots of interest last year. The research explores key challenges and priorities of Sales Operations departments. Developed by SMA’s Sales Operations Advisory Board, we presented last year’s results at The Conference Board’s Sales Operations Leadership Conference (with help from our Advisory Board member Price Burlington from SAP). We&r ...