Resources

Sales operations is an emerging management discipline in firms with sales organizations of significant size. Leveraging an array of support initiatives, sales operations can boost sales force productivity through technology, process improvement, reporting, and training. The Sales Management Association believes sales management is thinking more strategically about sales operations as...Read more

For large sales organizations, account profiling is an essential sales force planning activity. Account profiles offer a summary view of customers’ (or prospects’) characteristics and key issues, often providing the single most important sales force-to-management communication tool for customer issues. Like many firms that employ account profiles, Schlumberger Oilfield Services,...Read more

Many organizations use competency-based management programs as an over-arching framework for managing talent.  Competency-based management programs did not originate in the sales force, nor is their application unique to sales management.  Using competency-based programs in managing the sales organization yields significant benefits to many firms, and we believe it offers...Read more

The Sales Management Association’s Sales and Sales Management Competency Dictionary is designed as a resource for firms developing competency models for their sales organizations. It draws upon commonly used competency descriptions used by sales organizations in defining the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors associated with high-performing salespeople, sales managers, and...Read more

The Sales Management Association’s sales compensation resources include our library of pay plan templates, viewable here .  Each plan is presented in a downloadable spreadsheet template, which members can use to adapt a selected pay plan design to a sales position’s specific pay and performance requirements. We recently added two new...Read more

Staffing the sales function with sales representatives that have broadly defined “selling” skills is no guarantee of success. It may not even be enough to deploy sellers with skills adapted to the unique markets they compete in. Sales forces with the best likelihood of success are those that know when,...Read more

If you are a sales leader responsible for salespeople, you no doubt make decisions on what gets implemented in the sales organization with their best interest in mind.  New sales processes, programs, initiatives – many are valuable; but many burden your salespeople unnecessarily.  Each new idea and request can effectively...Read more

Lean Six Sigma is a management method used by manufacturing companies and service organizations to improve business performance.  It’s the lens through which many firms look at how they define, measure, analyze, improve, and control the things they do, make, and deliver to customers.  In doing so, they apply Lean...Read more