My recent post, Early Failure is Better than Late Failure, seems to have struck a chord. It was picked up in a number of other blogs, and the core tenet seems to be one that few experienced sales professionals question.
Right now, everyone seems to get the need for sales productivity. With hiring freezes, and travel bans, it’s getting harder to make that number, so you got to get it as right as you can – first time.
A recent Aberdeen Group report Sales Effectiveness – Pathways to Productvity, points the way with some very specific guidelines. These include the usual suspects (Sales Structure, Lead Management, Compensation Management etc.) and no doubt these will all help.
However, for me, the core of the value of this report is in the recommendations. Here are the first 5:
- Formalize and document sales process
- Solicit Exec Support for sales productivity tools
- Implement a formalized sales training program
- Define performance metrics to measure sales effectiveness
- Focus on team based collaborative selling.
For me, no. 1 is so fundamental, that if you don’t do it – you don’t deserve to survive; and no. 4 is necessary if you want to improve. Per the old saw . if you can’t measure it … etc.
These recommendation are not new or particularly insightful; but implementing them has never been more critical. Many Sales 2.0 tools exist today to get that achieved quickly, and then make it stick – so you don’t have an excuse.