Sales Performance Management
The “SMART” goal setting methodology is well known (“SMART” goals are “Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-related”). In a recent webcast Iconixx Software’s Bruce Jackson and Carolyn Jenkins described how SMART goal setting should apply to KPI (“Key Performance Indicator”) development. KPIs are often used as a kind of short-hand...Read more
Remember that crummy conference bag you didn’t get at last year’s Sales Force Productivity conference? You’re not getting one at this year’s conference either. Do you need another crummy conference bag? One you schlepp around for three days, full of stuff you aren’t even sure you want? An ugly, logo-slathered...Read more
Step inside the sales organization (most any large sales organization). You’ll see things that overwhelm the senses, confound reason, boggle the mind. Buyers will violate long-established natural laws governing customer behavior. Salespeople will perform activities that serve no purpose, and be paid for outcomes that they do not influence. Investments...Read more
ZS Associates’ Andy Zoltners is fond of posing the following question: If you had to decide between having a team of excellent salespeople with an average manager, or having a team of average salespeople with an excellent manager, which would you choose It’s a question he asked the general session...Read more
Sales organizations are smart to invest in “onboarding” – systematic programs that assist new salespeople up the learning curve. Yet plenty of companies miss the boat when it comes to onboarding sales leadership. In fact, most firms are caught flat-footed when a sales manager leaves the firm. Without a ready...Read more
Buy your salespeople iPads, and they’ll play more Angry Birds. But that shouldn’t stop you from pushing your sales organization to adopt tablets. That’s one finding from our recently concluded Study of Sales Force Tablet Computing Trends. Another is that salespeople are adopting iPads on their own as fast as...Read more
Coaching As you read the word ‘coaching’ above, one of several thoughts might have come to mind. Perhaps you recalled the coaching model that your company wants you to use with your reps. Perhaps you were reminded that you haven’t been doing enough of it recently. Or maybe you thought,...Read more
“Coaching” salespeople yields tangible productivity benefits for sales forces, as research (including our own) has shown. Yet although coaching is considered important by sales organizations, it is under-supported by executive leadership (see the exhibit from our research below). And despite acknowledging coaching’s benefits, very few sales organizations field credible coaching...Read more
