Sales Management Matters is an online publication of The Sales Management Association, distributed in electronic form at www.salesmanagement.org/blog or www.salesmanagementmatters.com. Sales Management Matters publishes articles of interest to practicing professionals in the field of sales management and sales force effectiveness.

Sales Management Matters treats a wide range of topics relevant to its readership. However, most content will focus around one of several key sales management topics, listed below. Feature submissions aligned with these topics are most likely to be accepted.

Sales Management Matters publishes article formats that include long-form feature articles, subject matter expert interviews, practitioner profiles, how-to guides, and case studies. Case studies highlight best practices or illustrate effective sales management applications in field practice. Case study articles may identify subject firms by name, or may use a company pseudonym.

Feature and case study submissions should target 800-2,000 words in length. Longer articles or multi-part articles may also be considered. Shorter articles are also useful, and may be based on newsworthy items.

Readership

The Sales Management Association is a professional association for sales leadership and sales force support functions. The Sales Management Association is the only worldwide, cross-industry association focused exclusively on sales management and sales force effectiveness professionals.

Our membership is made up of:

  • Field sales managers with direct responsibility for managing sales teams;
  • Executive management responsible for the professional development and effectiveness of sales management;
  • Sales training professionals;
  • Sales operations professionals responsible for supporting sales management and improving sales force productivity;
  • General management responsible for directly managing the sales force.

Submissions

Prospective contributors should develop a short outline of their proposed article and submit it to Meredith Shank (mshank@salesmanagement.org). Feedback will be provided within two weeks (though typically much sooner). Submissions are accepted year-round. If it is important for your article to be published by a certain time, or if any information is confidential until a certain date, let us know when you submit the article so we can plan accordingly.

After a complete article is submitted to the Sales Management Association team, feedback will be provided on the article within two weeks.

Accepted articles must:

  • Clearly relate to Sales Management Matters s readership
  • Be no longer than 2,500 words;
  • Be previously unpublished online or in print;
  • Be submitted in Microsoft Word format;
  • Include author’s biographical information;
  • Avoid a commercial bias; that is, it should not focus on marketing a specific product or service; and
  • Grant the Sales Management Association exclusive publication rights for 30 days; after this period, republished articles must mention that the article appeared in the Sales Management Matters blog first.

Articles may contain hyperlinks; however, links are subject to approval by the Sales Management Association team.

Italics and bolding are allowed, but use them sparingly. You may also divide longer articles into sections; we may do this at our discretion.

Upon acceptance, we will contact you for a short biography and headshot to include at the end of the article. You will also be alerted when the article is published so you can promote it to your colleagues as you wish.

Sales Management Matters Focus Topics

Sales Management Matters issues will focus on the following management themes. All submissions should target relevant issues from sales management’s perspective. Articles with a personal selling focus (e.g., “sales tips”) are not useful.

  • Sales strategy and planning (establish sales force priorities and objectives; forecasting; budgeting)
  • Channel management (establishing/optimizing go-to-market strategy, including sales channel design; managing channel conflict; communicating effectively across multiple channels)
  • Sales organization design (defining job roles; assigning the right resources to the right opportunities; correctly sizing sales headcount and deployment)
  • Sales process management (defining the optimal sales processes; troubleshooting sales process bottlenecks; increasing sales force productivity)
  • Sales coaching and leadership (managing low performers up/out; continuous skill improvement throughout the organization; establishing/maintaining a specific culture; developing new sales managers)
  • Sales incentive compensation (designing/administering sales compensation plans; assessing current compensation program ROI; non-cash incentives)
  • Sales technology (implementing/managing CRM software; increasing sales force productivity with technology-enabled support)
  • Sales training (selecting/working with third-party sales trainers; designing implementing training programs; determining training ROI)
  • Recruiting (recruiting and selecting sales people; assessing candidates for hire; effective interviewing)
  • Member development (trends in sales management career development; career planning/networking for sales management)