Sales Management Matters

Marketers and technologists may be slow to admit this, but great conversations are important to B2B selling. Not in the euphemistic, marketing-speak context of a blog post’s comment thread, or an invitation to “join the conversation” by filling out a web-enabled registration form. We’re talking about honest-to-God conversations, where humans...Read more

Each quarter the Sales Management Association publishes a scholarly research article from The Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, the most important academic journal wholly focused in sales. In the future, we plan on featuring these articles – and other academic research work – with content that “translates” research...Read more

Symmetrics Group’s Michael Perla recently joined us on a webcast to review findings from our research Annual Sales Meetings – Best Practices in Preparation and Planning. Conducted in collaboration with Symmetrics Group, the research examines how large organizations plan effective annual sales meetings. It includes input from 51 business-to-business sales...Read more

CallidusCloud’s Chris Lesar offered several ideas for improving proposal effectiveness on our recent webcast Optimizing Sales Proposals and Quoting. Lesar frames the discussion by suggesting fouressential elements in a CPQ (Configure, Price, and Quotation) process: Product Selection Proposals Negotiations and Approvals Order Fulfillment Each element poses significant challenges, including delivering...Read more

We recently completed fascinating research on corporate training and development programs for sales managers. In a recent webcast (Research Update: Developing Sales Managers), research underwriter Business Efficacy’s Kurt Theriault joined me for a preliminary review of the study findings. The research show that firms spend less, per-person, on sales manager...Read more

We recently featured Splunk sales effectiveness leaders Bart Fanelli and Kym Wood in “Case Study: Sales Enablement at Splunk.” Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) has taken the “big data” space by storm; the firm IPO’d in April. Their webcast is noteworthy on several fronts: it offers great practitioner-focused perspective on effective sales enablement;...Read more

Mercer’s Shawn Rossi discussed sales strategy development in a recent webcast, Sales Planning and Strategy: Optimizing Resources, Tactics, and Outcomes. Sales strategy, says Rossi, answers three questions: What, How and Where What What is your growth target? Many factors impact this – including budget resources, past achievement, and demand projections. Rossi...Read more

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...Read more