The challenges facing sales leaders in the next couple of years. What you can expect and what you need to prepare for. SalesRehab - A Chally group partner.
How to Sell More With Social Selling: Every Employee, Every Deal, Every TimeKissmetrics on SlideShare
How to Sell More with Social Every Employee, Every Deal, Every Time Michael Idinopulos, PeopleLinx CMO
Join the conversation on Twitter @ThueLMadsen #KISSwebinar
Your Presenter Michael Idinopulos – CMO - @michaelido ! ! Michael is currently Chief Marketing Officer at PeopleLinx. He previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Socialtext, bringing the first social software inside corporate, nonprofit, and government organizations. Before joining Socialtext, Michael was a consultant and global Director of Knowledge Technology with premier strategy consultancy McKinsey & Company, where he led pioneering enterprise deployments of blogs, wikis, and social networking. Michael holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from U.C. Berkeley and currently lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three children.
Join the conversation on Twitter @Michaelido #KISSwebinar
What is Social Selling? Section One Leveraging digital social networks to create and nurture relationships which enhance your sales efforts.
Social Selling is NOT… …delivering the hard sell on LinkedIn.! ! …closing deals on Twitter.! ! …a replacement for talking to prospects.! ! …a magic bullet for making quota.!
Why Social Selling?
Reps Sell More By Using Online Social Networks
Social Touches Every Part of the Sales Funnel…
…and Every Role in the Sales Organization Marketing
Leverage employee social networks to build brand awareness and generate leads.
How do we get from there to here?
Social Selling Maturity Model
Step 1: Random acts of social
The problem is…it’s random
Step 2: Corporate Social Broadcasting
Broadcasting is not social 84% trust personal recommendations Section Three v. 15% trust recommendations from brands
The problem is…it’s not social
With measurement comes optimization
Step 5: Predictive Optimization
With process comes measurement
With measurement comes optimization
Content shelf life varies dramatically by network
What if you knew… …where social interactions influenced pipeline and deal closes? …which social networks offer your company maxim al ROI as measured by pipeline generation and closed deals? …when is the optimal time in the deal cycle for the rep to connect with a prospect on LinkedIn?
Where is your team on the maturity model?
The theme of the 2014 MarketingProfs' B2B Marketing Forum is "Marketing For What Comes Next." Lee Odden of TopRank decided to ask some of the brightest minds in marketing to make predictions about where marketing is heading. What he got ranged from realistic to ridiculous, but all were packed with insight.
How to Sell More With Social Selling: Every Employee, Every Deal, Every TimeKissmetrics on SlideShare
How to Sell More with Social Every Employee, Every Deal, Every Time Michael Idinopulos, PeopleLinx CMO
Join the conversation on Twitter @ThueLMadsen #KISSwebinar
Your Presenter Michael Idinopulos – CMO - @michaelido ! ! Michael is currently Chief Marketing Officer at PeopleLinx. He previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Socialtext, bringing the first social software inside corporate, nonprofit, and government organizations. Before joining Socialtext, Michael was a consultant and global Director of Knowledge Technology with premier strategy consultancy McKinsey & Company, where he led pioneering enterprise deployments of blogs, wikis, and social networking. Michael holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from U.C. Berkeley and currently lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three children.
Join the conversation on Twitter @Michaelido #KISSwebinar
What is Social Selling? Section One Leveraging digital social networks to create and nurture relationships which enhance your sales efforts.
Social Selling is NOT… …delivering the hard sell on LinkedIn.! ! …closing deals on Twitter.! ! …a replacement for talking to prospects.! ! …a magic bullet for making quota.!
Why Social Selling?
Reps Sell More By Using Online Social Networks
Social Touches Every Part of the Sales Funnel…
…and Every Role in the Sales Organization Marketing
Leverage employee social networks to build brand awareness and generate leads.
How do we get from there to here?
Social Selling Maturity Model
Step 1: Random acts of social
The problem is…it’s random
Step 2: Corporate Social Broadcasting
Broadcasting is not social 84% trust personal recommendations Section Three v. 15% trust recommendations from brands
The problem is…it’s not social
With measurement comes optimization
Step 5: Predictive Optimization
With process comes measurement
With measurement comes optimization
Content shelf life varies dramatically by network
What if you knew… …where social interactions influenced pipeline and deal closes? …which social networks offer your company maxim al ROI as measured by pipeline generation and closed deals? …when is the optimal time in the deal cycle for the rep to connect with a prospect on LinkedIn?
Where is your team on the maturity model?
The theme of the 2014 MarketingProfs' B2B Marketing Forum is "Marketing For What Comes Next." Lee Odden of TopRank decided to ask some of the brightest minds in marketing to make predictions about where marketing is heading. What he got ranged from realistic to ridiculous, but all were packed with insight.
Marketers have seen their jobs transformed over the past ten years. The transformation is happening again — but faster this time. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit's survey of 478 high-level marketing executives worldwide, sponsored by Marketo, more than 80% say they need to restructure marketing to better support the business. And 29% believe the need for change is urgent.
Breakthroughs In Increasing Retention And LTV By Engaging Customers At 7 Crit...G3 Communications
Learn how global human capital powerhouse Mercer strategically engages at every step of the customer lifecycle, sharing critical insights, data and services to enable 24,000 clients worldwide to create a workforce for the future. Mercer’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, Jeanniey Mullen, will be joined by DMA Hall of Famer, Ernan Roman, President, ERDM Corp.
Roman will share findings from VoC research his firm conducted for brands such as IBM, MassMutual and Microsoft, which identified seven essential points in the customer lifecycle where B2B decision makers expect personalized value and support from trusted service providers.
Sales and Marketing 3.0: The High Velocity ModelGGV Capital
This deck looks at the evolution of the next model in enterprise sales and marketing: the high velocity organization. See how high velocity teams use technology, data and automation to align sales and marketing and drive faster leads and conversions.
Everybody talks about Digital Transformation and Digital Disruption and the impact on Marketing. Marketing needs to find new ways to interact, sure. But do digital transformation of marketing and digital marketing even exist? Not sure! Whatever, you still need to get ready for new technologies like Voice. And you should do it fast.
Thorsten Sachtje (Senior Consultant Digital Strategy @ metapeople - Part of Artefact) held this presentation as part of a 1,5 hour lecture to Marketing Management BSc students of Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) on June 7th, 2018.
What is Sales 2.0? Much has changed since Sales 1.0, and it's important for sales organizations to keep up with the changing times. Check out this new Slideshare, inspired by InsideView, on what exactly is Sales 2.0.
Data-Driven Marketing and Marketing Technologies in Modern Marketing - Travis...Travis Wright, Author 📚🤔
With over 2000 marketing technologies in over 40 categories, choosing the right technologies for your data-driven marketing technology stack is imperative. Do you buy a "marketing cloud" from the tools acquired and pieced together by established tech giants? Or do you build your own custom "Open Marketing Cloud", which may allow for greater flexibility and openness?
This keynote will explore the pros and cons of each potential solution as well as insights the vendors won't tell you. It will highlight the key data you need to understand and uncover some tools that can impact the build of your perfect custom marketing cloud for you business needs. No one size fits all in the marketing technology space. Join Travis for this unique, entertaining, and action-packed presentation to learn where MarTech is headed and how to roll with the changes.
Are you looking for a new strategy to grow your sales in 2013? These slides offer a quick guide on how a Big Data strategy can fuel sales growth in addition to offering top tips on sales productivity from experts including Jill Konrath, Kendra Lee, Dan Waldschmidt, Mark Hunter, Greg Alexander and more.
6 reasons why you need data driven marketingRedspire Ltd
In a world where information doubles each quarter, smart marketers use data. This SlideShare explores 6 reasons modern marketers can use to justify a data strategy.
Annalect EMEA CEO Jon Ghazi's presentation on data-driven marketing at The CMO Transformation Workshop, which was hosted by Annalect Finland, TBWA\Helsinki and Google in 19.1.2017.
You Have a Predictive Lead Score. Now What? | Best Practices from LatticeLattice Engines
Here are 10 best practices to follow once you have deployed predictive lead scoring, based on the blog post by Keith Burrows, our senior director of alliances and partnerships. Read more here: http://www.lattice-engines.com/blog/predictive-lead-score-best-practices
Millennials & Influencer Marketing: How To Organize & Optimize For B2BG3 Communications
Not only are Millennial-aged professionals more trusting of social influencers when making purchase decisions, they’re also more likely to participate as influential content creators. B2B brands that can master working with internal and external Millennial talent to co-create content and engage on social channels will reap rewards now and into the future.
This presentation by Lee Odden of TopRank Marketing and Alexandra Rynne of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions will help B2B marketers understand the influencer marketing opportunity with Millennials in multiple ways, including:
-Understanding influencer engagement models from seasoned “brandividuals” to rising star Millennials;
-Busting myths about working with Millennials and how B2B brands can create win/win relationships; and
-Learning from examples of B2B influencer content in action.
It is that time of year again! The time when we, as marketers, reflect on the past year and plan for the year to come. Marketing and technology change so fas that we need to prepare. To help with your 2016 planning--and for a fun look ahead into the future of marketing--EverString has compiled marketing predictions form internal and external thought leaders from around the company.
The Future of B2B Marketing: Trends and Implications for MarketersDemandbase
B2B marketing is changing faster than most marketers can grasp and act on. In this session from LinkedIn, you’ll learn key emerging trends in B2B marketing and find out how programmatic advertising can help B2B advertisers capitalize on new opportunities. The presentation aims to challenge you to question conventional marketing wisdom and rethink how to build brand and generate revenue through programmatic.
Data driven marketing - Inspiration & Steps to move forwardGus Murray
How digital insights and personalisation are changing the way organisations use their corporate website.
Propeople’s Chief Digital Strategy officer and former SMW Speaker of the Year Gus Murray, delivers an evening of insights, predictions & cocktails. Join us as he shares his experiences working for leading Nordic & Global brands on the future of Data Driven Marketing, B2B / B2C Communications, Insights and digital strategy.
Covered in this session:
> How personalisation is changing the way B2B communicate with their customers
> Content as your customers first purchase
> Using social to better inform your audience understanding
> Social as a service opportunity, and
> The Attention web.
How to Take Advantage of the Trends that Make ABM a Successful Strategy for B...LinkedIn
The rising importance of data-driven marketing, marketing automation, and customer experience have made account-based marketing inevitable. If you're in B2B marketing, you're going to use an ABM approach sooner or later.
Experts from DXC Technology, Engagio, and LinkedIn will discuss:
• Why Account-Based Marketing has become essential if you're in B2B marketing and sales
• How you can get started with Account- Based Marketing today (it's easier than you think)
• A step-by-step blueprint for running the best Account-Based Marketing plays
Slides from a client presentation given recently to a group of finance executives, outlining how to think about digital strategy and its relevance to their business. Works for just about any service industry in terms of thinking about digital strategy.
3 Things Every Sales Team Needs to Be Thinking About in 2017Drift
Thinking about your sales team's goals for 2017? Drift's VP of Sales shares 3 things you can do to improve conversion rates and drive more revenue.
Read the full story on the Drift blog here: http://blog.drift.com/sales-team-tips
How to Become a Thought Leader in Your NicheLeslie Samuel
Are bloggers thought leaders? Here are some tips on how you can become one. Provide great value, put awesome content out there on a regular basis, and help others.
Marketers have seen their jobs transformed over the past ten years. The transformation is happening again — but faster this time. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit's survey of 478 high-level marketing executives worldwide, sponsored by Marketo, more than 80% say they need to restructure marketing to better support the business. And 29% believe the need for change is urgent.
Breakthroughs In Increasing Retention And LTV By Engaging Customers At 7 Crit...G3 Communications
Learn how global human capital powerhouse Mercer strategically engages at every step of the customer lifecycle, sharing critical insights, data and services to enable 24,000 clients worldwide to create a workforce for the future. Mercer’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, Jeanniey Mullen, will be joined by DMA Hall of Famer, Ernan Roman, President, ERDM Corp.
Roman will share findings from VoC research his firm conducted for brands such as IBM, MassMutual and Microsoft, which identified seven essential points in the customer lifecycle where B2B decision makers expect personalized value and support from trusted service providers.
Sales and Marketing 3.0: The High Velocity ModelGGV Capital
This deck looks at the evolution of the next model in enterprise sales and marketing: the high velocity organization. See how high velocity teams use technology, data and automation to align sales and marketing and drive faster leads and conversions.
Everybody talks about Digital Transformation and Digital Disruption and the impact on Marketing. Marketing needs to find new ways to interact, sure. But do digital transformation of marketing and digital marketing even exist? Not sure! Whatever, you still need to get ready for new technologies like Voice. And you should do it fast.
Thorsten Sachtje (Senior Consultant Digital Strategy @ metapeople - Part of Artefact) held this presentation as part of a 1,5 hour lecture to Marketing Management BSc students of Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) on June 7th, 2018.
What is Sales 2.0? Much has changed since Sales 1.0, and it's important for sales organizations to keep up with the changing times. Check out this new Slideshare, inspired by InsideView, on what exactly is Sales 2.0.
Data-Driven Marketing and Marketing Technologies in Modern Marketing - Travis...Travis Wright, Author 📚🤔
With over 2000 marketing technologies in over 40 categories, choosing the right technologies for your data-driven marketing technology stack is imperative. Do you buy a "marketing cloud" from the tools acquired and pieced together by established tech giants? Or do you build your own custom "Open Marketing Cloud", which may allow for greater flexibility and openness?
This keynote will explore the pros and cons of each potential solution as well as insights the vendors won't tell you. It will highlight the key data you need to understand and uncover some tools that can impact the build of your perfect custom marketing cloud for you business needs. No one size fits all in the marketing technology space. Join Travis for this unique, entertaining, and action-packed presentation to learn where MarTech is headed and how to roll with the changes.
Are you looking for a new strategy to grow your sales in 2013? These slides offer a quick guide on how a Big Data strategy can fuel sales growth in addition to offering top tips on sales productivity from experts including Jill Konrath, Kendra Lee, Dan Waldschmidt, Mark Hunter, Greg Alexander and more.
6 reasons why you need data driven marketingRedspire Ltd
In a world where information doubles each quarter, smart marketers use data. This SlideShare explores 6 reasons modern marketers can use to justify a data strategy.
Annalect EMEA CEO Jon Ghazi's presentation on data-driven marketing at The CMO Transformation Workshop, which was hosted by Annalect Finland, TBWA\Helsinki and Google in 19.1.2017.
You Have a Predictive Lead Score. Now What? | Best Practices from LatticeLattice Engines
Here are 10 best practices to follow once you have deployed predictive lead scoring, based on the blog post by Keith Burrows, our senior director of alliances and partnerships. Read more here: http://www.lattice-engines.com/blog/predictive-lead-score-best-practices
Millennials & Influencer Marketing: How To Organize & Optimize For B2BG3 Communications
Not only are Millennial-aged professionals more trusting of social influencers when making purchase decisions, they’re also more likely to participate as influential content creators. B2B brands that can master working with internal and external Millennial talent to co-create content and engage on social channels will reap rewards now and into the future.
This presentation by Lee Odden of TopRank Marketing and Alexandra Rynne of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions will help B2B marketers understand the influencer marketing opportunity with Millennials in multiple ways, including:
-Understanding influencer engagement models from seasoned “brandividuals” to rising star Millennials;
-Busting myths about working with Millennials and how B2B brands can create win/win relationships; and
-Learning from examples of B2B influencer content in action.
It is that time of year again! The time when we, as marketers, reflect on the past year and plan for the year to come. Marketing and technology change so fas that we need to prepare. To help with your 2016 planning--and for a fun look ahead into the future of marketing--EverString has compiled marketing predictions form internal and external thought leaders from around the company.
The Future of B2B Marketing: Trends and Implications for MarketersDemandbase
B2B marketing is changing faster than most marketers can grasp and act on. In this session from LinkedIn, you’ll learn key emerging trends in B2B marketing and find out how programmatic advertising can help B2B advertisers capitalize on new opportunities. The presentation aims to challenge you to question conventional marketing wisdom and rethink how to build brand and generate revenue through programmatic.
Data driven marketing - Inspiration & Steps to move forwardGus Murray
How digital insights and personalisation are changing the way organisations use their corporate website.
Propeople’s Chief Digital Strategy officer and former SMW Speaker of the Year Gus Murray, delivers an evening of insights, predictions & cocktails. Join us as he shares his experiences working for leading Nordic & Global brands on the future of Data Driven Marketing, B2B / B2C Communications, Insights and digital strategy.
Covered in this session:
> How personalisation is changing the way B2B communicate with their customers
> Content as your customers first purchase
> Using social to better inform your audience understanding
> Social as a service opportunity, and
> The Attention web.
How to Take Advantage of the Trends that Make ABM a Successful Strategy for B...LinkedIn
The rising importance of data-driven marketing, marketing automation, and customer experience have made account-based marketing inevitable. If you're in B2B marketing, you're going to use an ABM approach sooner or later.
Experts from DXC Technology, Engagio, and LinkedIn will discuss:
• Why Account-Based Marketing has become essential if you're in B2B marketing and sales
• How you can get started with Account- Based Marketing today (it's easier than you think)
• A step-by-step blueprint for running the best Account-Based Marketing plays
Slides from a client presentation given recently to a group of finance executives, outlining how to think about digital strategy and its relevance to their business. Works for just about any service industry in terms of thinking about digital strategy.
3 Things Every Sales Team Needs to Be Thinking About in 2017Drift
Thinking about your sales team's goals for 2017? Drift's VP of Sales shares 3 things you can do to improve conversion rates and drive more revenue.
Read the full story on the Drift blog here: http://blog.drift.com/sales-team-tips
How to Become a Thought Leader in Your NicheLeslie Samuel
Are bloggers thought leaders? Here are some tips on how you can become one. Provide great value, put awesome content out there on a regular basis, and help others.
If you need to Accelerate the performance of your Sales Team, then GoGetter is the solution for you. It is a packaged prgoramme consisting of tools, training and coaching to accellerate the performance of you Sales management and your sales team.....a programme that transforms your sales organization from average to great...
Duplicate Leads: Unrealized Value or Waste of Time?Velocify
For years, salespeople have paid little attention to duplicate leads, thinking they have already spoken to the prospects and know their story. New research has uncovered that duplicate leads should demand more favor, converting at a 167% higher than average rate.
In the new Velocify study, “Duplicate Leads: Unrealized Value or Waste of Time,” 100,000 duplicate leads were analyzed in order to compare their performance to non-duplicate leads in terms of conversion rate. This study uncovers many surprising insights about the value of duplicate leads that will likely change the way many organizations think about duplicate leads going forward.
What you will learn:
- How the number of times a lead is flagged as a duplicate affects conversion
- How the timing between duplicates impacts a lead’s performance
- When duplicate leads are more likely to convert
Access the full presentation in the on-demand webinar: http://bit.ly/1PAiaCz
The average salesperson spends less than 35% of their time selling. Just think of what increasing the time spent selling – even by 10% – could do to our revenues. Watch the webinar here: http://bit.ly/1PAiaCz to learn:
- How to better guard your time
- How to focus on activities that drive revenue
- What routine tasks you should consider automating
On September 7th, 1982, legendary 'Mad Man' David Ogilvy sent an internal memo to all agency employees, titled “How to Write”. Here are 10 hints to help how to write.
Tips on writing a business plan from an investor's perspective.
Please visit:
https://flevy.com/browse/business-document/developing-and-presenting-your-business-plan-148
For an improved version of these slides
Imagine a culture where the input of the whole organization turns an individual idea into a user story in just a couple of hours, where everybody's goal is to make the customer’s job easier and more effective, and where you work on projects you love instead of projects you loathe. A great coding culture concentrates on making developers productive and happy by removing unnecessary overhead, bringing autonomous teams together, helping the individual programmer to innovate, and raising awareness among developers about how to create better code.
I will talk about how to establish and foster a strong engineering-focused culture that scales from a small team to a huge organization with hundreds of developers. I'll give lots of examples from our experience at Atlassian to show that once you're working in a great coding culture, you won't want to work anywhere else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAk04-_M-JM&feature=youtu.be
SpringOwl's 99 Page Presentation On How To Best Turnaround Yahoo!Eric Jackson
On Dec. 13, 2015, SpringOwl shared the attached 99 page presentation which had been sent to the Yahoo board. In it, we argue for why change is needed from the status quo at Yahoo, why selling the core business now at the lows isn't attractive for long-term shareholders and our 9 point plan for turning around the company.
Sales is undergoing a radical and fundamental change in response to the evolving demands of a more informed and increasingly digital world of prospects. HubSpot CRO Mark Roberge interviewed nine thought leaders regarding their predictions on the Future of Sales.
White paper on the success of modernized telesales approaches in large sales cycles. Telesales 2.0™ is the #1 way to engage with technology stakeholders, progress your pipeline and retain opportunities to realize revenue.
An organization is as healthy as the quality of its profitable organic deal pipeline in an enterprise setting. Given cut throat competition, vendor consolidation and analytics availability to discern total cost of ownership, it is becoming increasingly difficult to further hit/conversion ratios or differentiate indefinitely. Research has also shown that healthy organizations typically have 5-10% of sales coming from new deals and 90-95% of sales coming from existing customers/on-going business. Bear in mind that a deal this year, if retained, becomes on-going the next year. A key question foremost in the minds of many is that in the current environment that is evolving past, are there simple rules that we can follow to qualify and nurture leads?
The answer to the question lies in the sales assets that one needs to build, project and continuously hone in order to keep the lucre flowing.
To celebrate LinkedIn's 10th anniversary and 10 years of remarkable transformation in the recruitment industry, we asked 12 industry thought leaders to share their opinions about what the next 10 years might bring for talent acquisition.
Features talent acquisition experts from Red Hat, SAP, Unilever, L'Oreal, Opower, Rapid7, First Citizens Bank, Bernard Hodes, LinkedIn, Tenfold Social, Adler Group, and PNNL.
Learn more about LinkedIn Talent Solutions: http://linkd.in/1bgERGj
Subscribe to the LinkedIn Talent Blog: http://linkd.in/18yp4Cg
Follow the LinkedIn Talent Solutions page: http://linkd.in/1cNvIFT
Tweet with us: http://bit.ly/HireOnLinkedIn
Is the-future-of-sales-ops-as-successful-process-innovatorsDemandFarm
Is The Future Of Sales Ops As Successful Process Innovators?
Experience the transition of sales ops from data aggregators to value creators and now process innovators
1
Evolution of Sales Ops. Stay at the top of your game.
2
How Sales Ops have changed from having a passive role to have an active role in large organizations
3
How sales process innovators will disrupt the industry of sales operations
Is the-future-of-sales-ops-as-successful-process-innovators
Sales leaders challenges
1. Challenges Sales Leaders
of the Future Will Face
Thoughts and predictions from the most eminent
practitioners and thinkers in the business.
TM
RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT ROLES,
RIGHT DEVELOPMENT PLAN.
TALENT ANALYTICS
2. Compensation
Value
What challenges will Sales
Leaders of the future face?
And how will they rise to meet them?
Technology. Globalization. Specialization. Speed.
We see predictions about their effect on business practically every day. But while the concerns of the “CEO of the
future” are often discussed and debated, what about sales? What will the sales leaders of the future need to do to
compete effectively?
To explore this question, Chally Group Worldwide co-founder and Chairman Howard P. Stevens sat down recently
with some of the most eminent practitioners and thinkers in the business: Neil Rackham, renowned speaker and
author on sales, and Andy Zoltners, Co-founder of ZS Associates and Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Profes-
sor Emeritus of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. As part of an ongoing
conversation about the future of sales leadership, Stevens asked them what sales leaders can expect in years to
come, and how they can prepare.
Education
Training
Consulting
Resources
Structure
Technology
3. Education vs. training
This begs the question of how the sales person of the
future can consistently perform in this new role as
a trusted advisor. Rackham sees an increased focus
on education. Rather than giving a lot of specialized
training to generalist, sell-me-this-pencil candidates,
he foresees recruiting people who have the specific
education and knowledge to deliver a higher level of
expertise. “We’re not looking for an MBA in sales, but
rather for the kinds of things that go into an MBA.”
Does this shift mean that sales people will become
management consultants? Perhaps. But according to
Rackham, the leadership role in high-level selling teams
might call for someone who finds and delivers the ap-
propriate expertise, rather than having it themselves.
As he explains, “a big eye-opener for me in some
recent research we did was that the best account
managers weren’t the ones who spend the most time
out talking with the customers. The top players spend
nearly all their time working internally. Why? Because
by focusing on the way the company serves the cus-
tomer, managing the relationship between the two
companies, they could create more value.”
Sales or Consulting?
Psychometric evidence tells a similar story. Chally
Group research shows that many of the characteristics
that are most predictive of high-level success in sales
overlap strongly with those that predict the best senior
managers. In practice, says Stevens, “Whatever their job
description may say, top sales people succeed by taking
on more of an internal management role. They manage
the resources in their company, orchestrating them to
meet the needs of a particular customer.”
He points to additional research by Arun Sharma,
Professor of Marketing at the School of Business
Administration at the University of Miami, indicating
that the top 20% of a sales force consumed 52% of the
company’s total resources. This supports the idea that
even today, success in sales leadership “takes people
who know how to manipulate processes within the
company to the advantage of their customers.”
A brief history of the customer
The first question was one that should begin ev-
ery sales conversation: what does the customer
need? All agree that today’s customers are mov-
ing toward a very different set of expectations.
Zoltners notes that thanks to the Internet, an in-
formed customer can learn about you and your
product, objectively and in detail, even before
the first contact. “So the traditional function of
showing that your mouse trap is better than the
next person’s mouse trap is no longer relevant.”
The more sophisticated, consultative function of
problem-solving could meet the same fate. Ac-
cording to Rackham, “Today the evidence shows
that sales people who can anticipate problems
are much more valuable that those who can
solve them.” One survey respondent put it this
way: “If I fall into a hole, most sales people can
help me climb out. But not many can prevent me
from falling into the hole in the first place.”
Stevens summarized the evolution of the cus-
tomer’s expectations in three stages. The first
stage of sales was simply to introduce a product
and demonstrate its value. The second was to
provide additional value by solving problems
for the customer. The third will be to tell the
customer what those problems will be before
they happen. While the best people have always
provided help and expertise, “now that’s just the
ticket to the dance,” says Rackham. “Today com-
petitive advantage comes from having deeper
insight and vision, all the time.”
4. Conserving resources
On the other hand, the same study showed that the
top 20% of performers brought in 54% of the business
– considerably less than what the “80/20 rule” of con-
ventional wisdom would predict. So the standouts fail
to significantly outperform average in terms of earning
a return on the resources they spend.
As Rackham puts it, “over-resourcing the best op-
portunities may be the most successful of all sales
strategies today. But it’s often simply the most senior
people who shout the loudest who can allocate those
resources.”
He believes that opportunity management will have
to be a much greater focus in the future. “In a world in
which it costs IBM half a million dollars in global services
just to bid on a major piece of work, this kind of infor-
mal approach isn’t sustainable. Organizations are going
to need much more rational decision processes.”
Managing through compensation –
or through management?
If the sales leaders of the future look more like specialized
business consultants, professional managers, or both, will
they still be compensated largely by commission?
Zoltners believes that this bias may be inevitable. “You
could change to another system tomorrow, but of course
you’d want to retain and motivate the best people.
So then the high performers would get more money
anyway through bonuses and the like, and your system
would get broken. I think the decisions companies make
usually are manifestations of their culture and their
beliefs, and sales compensation is deeply ingrained in
those. It takes an unusually strong company to overcome
the status quo.”
Rackham reluctantly agrees. “If you try to manage
by compensation you’re probably not managing by
management. The best system to me would be a bonus
system where the incentive and focus came from the cul-
ture and the management of the company. But I think we
may have no choice but to have a high level of incentive
compensation.”
54/20Rule
5. Making sense of customer value
Of course, not all sales efforts will depend on high-lev-
el professional expertise. Enabled by online technolo-
gies, the experts believe that more transactional sales
will continue to migrate away from face-to-face selling.
As the extremes of the spectrum grow farther apart,
customer segmentation will become more critical, and
more complex.
Rackham frames the divergence in terms of value: “If
you look at customer value there will always be two
components: the cost and the benefits. You can create
benefits by increasing the expertise and the like that
you give them. Or you can decrease the cost for the
more transactional customer. The interesting thing is,
customers are neither entirely one nor the other. It will
depend on the opportunity.”
So will we see companies actually developing two or
more different sales forces? He thinks so. “I’ve always
disliked the hunter/farmer model. I don’t think that is
going to predominate in the future. I agree that we
need something more subtle than that. The evidence
seems to show that the successful company has got
to be able to use multiple models and target them
appropriately.”
Structural change
Given all these issues and trends, what two things are
most likely to change in the near future?
The hardest changes may be in the area of structure.
How can companies segment their sales expertise in
a way that is both efficient for the organization and
meaningful for customers? Specialization gets very
complicated, says Zoltners. “You’ve got big accounts,
little accounts, U.S. accounts, and global ones. What-
ever structure you begin with needs to be extensively
customized, and flexible enough to adapt to changes.”
Technological revolution
The other major evolution will be technology. Zoltners
believes that innovation in the ways sales people can
touch customers, such as tele-presence technologies,
social networks, data analytics, and outsourcing, are
just getting started. “Even today, inside sales jobs are
growing three times faster than outside sales thanks
to technology,” adds Stevens. “According to Salesforce.
com CEO Marc Benioff, inside sales people are getting
higher close rates than traditional teams, in a third of
the time and at a third of the cost.”
Importantly, many of these advantages work in both
directions. Technology adds flexibility and conve-
nience to the sales process for customers. And those
who have a fairly clear idea of what they want can
go and find it. Zoltners points to recent SSC research
showing that before the first discussion with the sales
person even happens, many customers have already
made a first-stage decision.
The end of sales as we know it?
If these trends continue, what does the future look
like for the sales person? Rackham predicts that the
number of face-to-face sales people will fall, but the
demands on them in terms of job complexity will rise.
“That’s going to mean a different kind of person, a
different skill set, and different kinds of autonomy,
supported by an organizational structure that’s both
more rational and more flexible.”
Regardless of what insights, skills, and resources the
sales person of the future may need to bring to the ta-
ble, Rackham is confident that personal interaction will
continue to be a critical part of the process. “At the end
of the day we’re still talking about human beings mak-
ing important decisions. Sometimes buyers just need
your reassurance that a particular product is going to
fit their needs at a particular cost. Sales as we know it
will not just go away. I think we’ll all still have jobs.”
6. Neil Rackham
There are millions of sales jobs around the world today, but a large number of those are disappearing
every year. As technology advances and consumer demands increase, the idea of a salesperson as a
“talking brochure” is no longer valid. World class sales forces understand this and are making every effort
to adapt and maintain their positions of leadership in the marketplace. There is no greater authority than
Neil Rackham on where the selling profession is headed and what individuals and organizations must do
to distinguish themselves from their fierce competitors.
Having conducted the largest-ever study of professional selling – observing more than 35,000 sales calls in
over 20 countries, at a cost of $40 million in today’s dollars – Neil presents objective, quantitative insights in a dynamic, interactive
fashion that brings true learning to the audience. (The effectiveness of his teaching and training methods earned him the Instruc-
tional Systems Association’s lifetime award for Innovation in Training and Instruction.)
Many of of the Fortune 100′s largest companies in the United States, including IBM, Xerox, AT&T and Citicorp, have engaged Neil
Rackham as an advisor on sales performance. More than half the Fortune 500 train their salespeople using sales models derived
from his research. As a sought-after conference speaker, Neil has shared the platform with notable leaders such as Tom Peters,
General Colin Powell, Philip Kotler and many others. Using his signature combination of humor, passion and group interaction, he
stimulates and challenges his audiences to reach new heights in the world of professional selling.
Howard P. Stevens
Howard Stevens is Chairman of Chally Group Worldwide. Mr. Stevens specializes in leadership develop-
ment, succession planning, customer and market analysis, and sales benchmarking. He is the creator of
the original sales product lifecycle classifications and designed the major 5-year longitudinal study of
leadership development for the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA. A licensed clinical psychologist,
he is also known for his research and programs to develop a professional sales curriculum at the university
level. With diversified interests, he is the author of several books on sales and management (published in
multiple languages) including Achieve Sales Excellence, The Quadrant Solution and Selling the Wheel. He has
written many articles and is a frequent speaker and radio and television guest. His World Class sales benchmarks program has
been presented over 500 times across 30 countries for corporations, trade associations, government agencies, and universities.
He has been a guest on CNN, Bloomberg USA, National Public Radio, Radio Free America, and other business-based programs.
Mr. Stevens also taught “World Class Sales” benchmarks at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and other univer-
sities, and serves on the Sales Advisory Board for Ohio University and the Foundation Board of Wright State University.
Andy Zoltners
Andris A. Zoltners, Founder of ZS Associates, is a Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor Emeri-
tus of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he had been a
faculty member for more than 30 years. In 1983, Professor Zoltners and former Kellogg colleague, Prabha
Sinha, founded ZS Associates. The success of ZS was recognized by their induction into the Chicago Entre-
preneurship Hall of Fame in 2005.
Professor Zoltners’ areas of expertise are sales force strategy; sales force size, structure and deployment;
sales force compensation; and sales force effectiveness. He has personally consulted for over 100 com-
panies in over 20 countries. In addition to his consulting, he has spoken at numerous conferences and has taught sales force
topics to several thousand Executive, M.B.A. and Ph.D. students. He has published more than 40 academic articles, edited two
books on Marketing Models and has co-authored a series of books on sales force management.
Prior to joining the faculty at Kellogg, Professor Zoltners was a member of the Business School Faculty at the University of
Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University.