20
2014
How Great Organizations Work to Deliver VALUE!
Have you ever noticed that those companies and organizations that we consider as being great do things better and are much more effective and successful in the things that they do? Why is that? What is it that makes those organizations be that way? Well for one thing, I believe that those organizations which excel at being great have an awareness and understanding of not…
04
2014
How a business suffers when sales and marketing aren’t on the same page
In today’s challenging and competitive economy, it is more important than ever that a company’s sales and marketing efforts are productive, effective and efficient. Unfortunately, millions of dollars in business opportunities are lost or squandered every single day when these two seemingly close-linked departments get it wrong. Here are a few examples: Business opportunities are lost when the Sales Department… Doesn’t have access to the…
16
2014
Do you use Sales Performance Management?
In his latest research for Aberdeen, Peter Ostrow has uncovered some interesting insights into some key problems around sales management and their attempt to deal with sales performance. Simply managing a sales team today has changed dramatically over the years and the old “carrot and stick” method no longer works like before. Today’s sales managers need to be more creative and use concepts like “Gamification”…
03
2013What do CEO’s really want from their Sales & Marketing teams?
Let’s face it, the bottom line for every CEO is increasing business, meeting their revenue goals and being more profitable! If their Sales and Marketing teams can meet those demands, then most CEO’s are happy with that. They really don’t care if their Sales and Marketing teams are aligned, because if they are on target, then they simply assume that they are aligned. Again, they…
12
2013
Sales Content Challenges #3
This is the third article in this series about Sales Content Challenges, and for this article I would like to revisit my good friend Michael Cannon of the Silver Bullet Group (http://www.silverbulletgroup.com) and offer some outtakes from his Blog posting of 9/25/2013 “What is the cost of ineffective customer communications?” In this article Michael states: “Proof that most of your customer communications (marketing content and…
28
2013
Sales Content Challenges #1
This is the first article in a series on the value and challenges of producing the type of sales content that motivates customers to buy, drives cross selling and provides sales people with the type of content they need to be more effective and productive. I want to thank my good friend, Stephen Diorio of Profitable Channels, for this summary that was taken from…
23
2013
Death of a Salesman????
No, this isn’t an article about Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize winning play about Willy Loman. Instead, I want to put to bed that the need for sales people has diminished recently due to the paradigm shift in the sophistication of buyers. Granted, the Internet has allowed buyers to search for what they need long before they engage with a sales person. But, that takes into…
16
2013
Sales Enablement brings about Sales & Marketing Alignment
I just finished a great research brief “Sales Enablement: Fulfilling the Last Frontier of Marketing-Sales Alignment”, from Peter Ostrow and Trip Kucera of the Aberdeen Group. In it they make some excellent points around the value of having a Sales Enablement process to better align Marketing and Sales. The relationship between B2B marketing and sales teams is more than just about leads and lead management….
26
2013
Keeping your Sales & Marketing teams Accountable
Where does accountability lie within your organization and how do you go about holding people accountable for their performance, or lack thereof? I know a lot of organizations have annual reviews that are conducted by HR or an immediate supervisor of how an individual is performing. Depending on the organization these can be very helpful and detailed or just fluff. It all depends on who…
06
2013
Do You Have a Repeatable, Sustainable Profile for Success?
I was having a discussion with a good friend of mine recently and we were talking about how most organizations don’t have a repeatable, sustainable profile for how they achieve success. What we were referring to was the need for organizations to be able to have a clear understanding of how they are successful in winning business. For many organizations, they can give you an…