Create. Increase. Accelerate. tm
Marketing, Meet Sales
January 6, 2010
About ten years ago, prior to launching my entrepreneurial career with Dan, I ran the marketing and communications department for $2 billion public company. We had the usual responsibilities for that era – investor and public relations, speaker promotions, branding, web site, collateral, press and media relations and internal communications. Our tenets and responsibilities were differentiation,... Read More...
Now is Time to Embrace Sales 2.0
December 31, 2009
After my final workout of 2009 this morning I was talking to a fellow gym member who is in software sales. I asked how his year closed and he replied he still had a few deals that could close today. He mentioned he lost a high probability prospect yesterday because the decision maker could not convince the board to fund the deal. He lamented that the prospect could clearly benefit from implementing... Read More...
Successful Sales Pipeline Habits
December 16, 2009
In early September I suggested that an analysis of your existing sales pipeline was necessary to begin the 2010 revenue planning process (Time Helps No Sale). It was no doubt a painful process, as some of your sales reps tried to convince you that dead or dormant opportunities were still viable. Based on your decisions, many of your opportunities may have been moved to unqualified status and... Read More...
Marketing or Sales, Which Comes First?
December 10, 2009
This question is a real dilemma for many companies that have separate sales and marketing organizations. In many companies there is a definite disconnect between the two departments. Marketing may feel that their mission is to establish a brand, provide clear messaging, sales collateral, and to provide a lead list to the sales organization. Once this process is done marketing feels that the sales... Read More...
Death of a Trade Show
November 19, 2009
Matt and I attended the Global Sourcing Forum and Expo at the Javits Convention Center in New York last week. This was the second year we attended and based on this year’s turnout it will probably be our last. We attended the show’s second and final day and there were easily more providers and speakers than buyers in attendance. I counted 90 or so companies exhibiting and 60 speakers for the... Read More...
Are You Sales Ready?
November 2, 2009
At last year’s OutsourceWorld conference in NY (now called the Global Sourcing Forum+Expo, New York City, November 11-12, 2009) 3forward colleague Dan Hudson and I were shocked by the lack of sales readiness demonstrated by so many providers. (For the details read last fall’s blog post titled OutsourceWorld 2008 – Emerging Providers Missed A Great Opportunity). What was surprising was that... Read More...
Hiring Sales Stars – Best Practices in Recruiting Winning Teams
October 27, 2009
(Need to make some changes to your existing sales team before bringing on new talent? Read parts one and two in this series titled Knowing When to Say Goodbye and Do Your Sales People Make the Grade) I recently attended a local Sales and Marketing executive meeting featuring a guest speaker on the subject of effective hiring practices. Having been in sales and sales leadership positions my entire... Read More...
Change Sales Strategy to Win Anchor Clients
October 16, 2009
Whether you are trying to enter a new market or open a new channel, winning that first anchor client is crucial to establishing a credible presence. Like any well run sales campaign, pursuing and winning the anchor client has a strategy and process that unique. Following is the typical, although not optimal, sales strategy companies follow to win an anchor client: Research targeted markets/channels... Read More...
Do Your Sales People Make The Grade
October 6, 2009
The topic of grading sales people came up on a recent Sales Readiness webinar we hosted when an attendee asked for benchmarking approaches beyond traditional quota attainment. The question deserved more detail than we could offer on a live call so we decided to treat it here. First, we’ll reference a prior post (The Revenue Clock is (Always) Ticking: Three Approaches to Improving Strategic Sales... Read More...
No Surprise Is A Good Surprise (When Revenue Planning)
September 29, 2009
As we make the final push for 2009 and get ready for 2010 let’s try not to forget those clients that got us to where we are today. Sales is often conditioned to believe that “new logos” are the key to future success, but the on-going operations of many companies rely on recurring revenue that sustains them. As part of any thorough revenue planning process, sales leaders must look at the embedded... Read More...
