Speaker and Content Submissions
The Sales Management Association welcomes contributions from anyone. A commercial relationship with the association is not required to have content submission or speaking proposal considered.
We accept contributions for any of the following:
- Sales Management Matters blog submissions. Sales Management Matters treats a wide range of topics, relevant to sales leadership and sales effectiveness managers, in formats that include long-form feature articles, subject matter expert interviews, opinion, and practitioner profiles.
- Publication of an article or paper in our Resource Library. Our Resource Library includes more detailed content, such as case studies, articles, how-to guides, white papers, and management tools.
- Presentation of a webcast or conference session. Speaking opportunities are available for online webcasts, conference workshops, and regional events. Consult our event listings page for a list of upcoming events.
How to Submit Your Idea
Prospective contributors should develop a short outline of their proposed article or presentation topic and submit it via email, with the phrase “content submission” in the subject line, to support@salesmanagement.org.
Before asking us to consider your contribution, please familiarize yourself with our Contributors’ Guidelines below.
Contributor’s Guidelines
Through online content, presentations, and in-person events, the Sales Management Association treats a range of management topics relevant to our audience. Across all content types, we look for submissions with the following qualities:
- Management focused: Articles with a personal selling focus (e.g.,”sales tips”) are unlikely to be accepted.
- Non-commercial: Submissions of an overtly commercial nature are not considered.
- Previously unpublished online, in print, or previously delivered in a public venue.
These topics are among those important to our audience:
- Aligning sales and strategy
- Sales analytics and reporting
- Sales manager learning and development
- Sales force technology investments
- Sales operations effectiveness
- Sales performance management
- Sales force motivation, incentives, and compensation
- Sales enablement
- Coaching, training and development
- Defining organic growth priorities
Submissions with a high likelihood of acceptance have these characteristics:
- They reference observed practices, in the context of case study, for example, rather than asserting unsupported opinion as best practice.
- They describe or reference credible research. Research citations should include author, date, publication link, and sample size, at minimum.
- They focus on actionable, practical ideas that managers can adopt.
- For speaking proposals, they include at least one contributor who is not a service provider or vendor. Speaker proposals that do not include at least one practitioner presenter are not considered. (We use the term practitioner to mean a management-level professional not compensated by a firm marketing products or services to sales organizations.)
Also note:
- Articles may contain hyperlinks, but links are subject to approval by the Sales Management Association.
- Italics and bolding are allowed, but use them sparingly.
- Generally, 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.
- Once approved, submissions should be in submitted in Microsoft Word format; should include author’s biographical information; and should grant the Sales Management Association exclusive publication rights for 30 days (after this period, republished articles must mention that the article appeared in Sales Management Matters, or in Sales Management Association’s Resource Library first.
Writing Guidelines
We generally adhere to AP Style.
A few non standard formatting quirks:
- When referencing currency in US dollars, use the format US$0,000 or US$0,000.00.
- For dates, use the format DD Month Year. Examples: 1 May 2016 [do not include a leading 0 in the date]; 31 December 2024.
- For times, reference US Eastern Time as the default, and use 12 hour notation like this: 2:00 p.m. Eastern US Time, or 4:30 p.m. Eastern US Time.
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