Richardson’s Mike Kunkle and Dario Priolo recently presented Six Emerging Trends in Sales Force Effectiveness; among the trends they spotlight: a resurgent focus on new account acquisition. Their excellent webcast is archived here.
Most markets, they point out, are thawing after the recession’s long winter. But with the relief of recovery comes a new worry: many firms are simply no longer good at winning new business. Kunkle (Director of Product Marketing) and Priolo (Chief Strategy Officer) cite CSO Insight’s recent study identifying “capturing new accounts” as sales organizations’ “top objective” (65% of respondents placed it on their short list of most important goals). Richardson’s own research indicates that 76% of salespeople identified “prospecting skills” as the competency they’d like most to improve. Taken together, the two findings point toward the challenge firms confront in reinvigorating new account acquisition.
Kunkle and Priolo outlined a few suggestions. These include adding more intelligence to lead management, by differentiating high from low quality prospects. A great place to start: win/loss analysis of old leads. Also important: building in feedback on lead quality in order to better direct marketing’s lead generation efforts; and driving salesperson accountability for lead qualification by establishing clear expectations coupled with manager coaching in prospecting skills.
Learn more on Richardson’s take on developing new business development capability. Members can view the 63-slide webcast in its entirety here. Have additional ideas for how to focus on new business development? Let us know in the comments below!
