Sales Management Matters

Take a moment to answer this question: How healthy is your sales pipeline at this very moment? What was the first idea that popped into your head? That’s right... The size of your pipeline. And your next step was probably to compare it to your overall quota. Three times quota? Four times quota? It’s the most classic measure of all, and it is founded on an assumption that has governed most sales forces since the beginning of the profession – Bigger is better. I have c ...

I recently had occasion to pick up an old copy of Spin Selling, still one of my favorites – which I’d recommend to Sales Management and Sales reps alike. Something caught my attention that I didn’t see the first time around -- fast sales cycles are not always the goal. Now, if you’ve been managing your team by providing KPIs around the timing or linearity of deals; your might take pause at a counter-intuitive idea such as this one.   But it stands to reason, d ...

Matrix Partners' David Skok recently presented at Boston's Lean Startup Circle on "Building a Sales and Marketing Machine." His insights, captured in this blog post and this SlideShare presentation deck, focus on customer acquisition, and utilize mostly B2C web-based business examples. But the larger insights apply to B2B sales organizations involved in complex, multi-face ...