Understanding some of the responsibilities of each role

Marketing

• Determine what products or services may be of interest to customers
• Develop brand and product/service messaging
• Identify target markets to penetrate
• Plan the process of approach, sale and execution
• Evaluate competitor threats

Sales

• Deliver organizations mission statement to customers
• Understand organization messaging and service/product
• Build relationships with both new and existing customers
• Help customer evaluate the most appropriate solution
• Negotiate a win-win situation for the customer and organization
• Manage sales funnels/pipeline

Common issues/obstacles that these divisions face

• Marketing staff lacks sales acumen and experience
• Messaging is NOT synchronized with a step-by-step sales process
• Marketing and sales have failed to communicate and develop effective blueprint of target customers
• Sales inability to drive new account sales due to lack of lead generation

Issues/Obstacles Solutions

• Hire staff that has experience in sales to develop and execute marketing
• Inexperienced marketing staff should spend time going through a sales training program to understand processes
• Marketing and sales executives should communicate to evaluate effective pro sales market messaging
• Sales representatives should determine target market sweet spots and rank prospects on a scale and then allow marketing to blueprint target markets
• Concentrate managing a funnel/pipeline that has a 70% focus on new account sales – funnel awareness is key

Related Links

Paint-the-Picture® sales process is a customized sales process to grab the mind share of your prospect and effectively prompt to your prospect to sign. Proven solution used by thousands of sales reps including the fortune 100.

Eliminating competitor threats – sales blueprinting post

Funnel Optimization – selling to the customer’s process, manage your focus on the right prospects and continue to regenerate new opportunities.

©2010. Sales Result Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Marketing and Sales responsibilities is a post from:

• Keep your incentives simple
• Avoid long term incentives (1-3 days max)
• Make your incentives easy to achieve
• Reward for good sales practices and metrics
• Plan your incentives around your average sales reps

Sales people are most driven to achieve objectives when the incentive is introduced, and right before it ends. Incentives typically peak performance in two stages:

1. After the introduction of the incentive
2. The last day of the incentive

Short term incentives allow for optimal results because of the constant repetition of these two stages. Make your incentives easy to achieve, remember that incentives are used mainly to motivate people. Avoid incentives that only are achievable by your top performers. Create incentives that reward sales people when they accomplish good sales practices. This will help your sales people get into the habit of winning. It also is a way to reward sales people for improvement, which will increase performance on a larger scale. The key towards scaling a sales force is the ability to turn average sales representatives into superstars. Outline key steps necessary in order for those reps to improve their performance and create incentives around those steps.

Related links & articles

Swot Analysis – Swot Analysis are great for strengthening sales planning

Build a Winning Sales Team – Is your team not achieving sales goals in this economy?

Inside Sales Power – Proven development of inside sales effectiveness

©2010. Sales Result Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Planning effective sales incentives is a post from:

I asked my friend how his sales director delivered the hard message. The meeting was based on the differences between winners vs. losers. The speech was well prepared and professional according to my friend but ended on a sour note. The meeting concluded with an “oh by the way, we need everyone to come in this Saturday from 9-5pm.” By the end of the meeting my friend noted that the look of frustration was manifested on people’s faces across the room.

Mandating work on your peoples off days has never been an effective approach to re-align with quota. The fact is that people don’t enjoy coming in on their day off unless they want to. This approach results in lower production levels, and it sends a negative message to your staff. So as a leader, if your organization is behind on numbers and you need to get back on track with quota, here is a strategy that is proven to be effective.

Be completely honest with your sales team. Hold them accountable for their production. Tell them that you need their help and offer support to help them get to where they need to be. If more hours are necessary to achieve quota, rotate longer shifts between your staff. Adding a few hours to their days a few times a month won’t be as daunting to your staff in comparison to a full work day on their day off.  Thank you reading and questions and comments are always welcome!

Related Links

Inside Sales Meetings

How to motivate an unmotivated sales force

Sales Performance Solutions

Executive Coaching

Sales Management – how to manage your people

©2010. Sales Result Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Need extra hours from your staff? is a post from:

May 17 2010 How to get more hours from your staff effectively.

May 24 2010 How to plan your incentives/spiffs to achieve and supersede quotas-what is the motivation behind your team? This article will outline proven solutions on how to plan effective incentives to drive revenues.

May 31 2010 How to replicate sales champions-having issues with developing new hires? CSO insights reports and estimated 55% do not hit quotas in 2010.

Related Links

Sales Result Inc -need to drive your sales revenue?

Sales Training Solutions- in person, virtual, on demand

Sales 2.0 Conference – Boston 2010 June 28

©2010. Sales Result Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Sales Management effectiveness-May Agenda is a post from:

Blueprinting tools

• Research your competitors websites
• Subscribe to their RSS feed to receive updates when they happen
• Join their Linked in, Facebook and other social profiles
• Determine their SEM campaign by using tools such as Keyword Spy
• Use research databases such as Hoovers to develop better insight
• Determine what type of CRM or other analytic tools
• Prepare  for future solution releases

Company’s today typically have content rich websites that will give you plenty of information on their functions and services. Social media profiles is another great source of information to find future release dates on solutions/services and marketing campaign tactics. With lead generation being more important than ever before, using tools such as Keyword Spy will allow your organization to benefit off your competitors SEM failures.

Does your competitor use an effective way of managing opportunities and marketing campaigns? Make an emphasis to determine your top competitors CRM and analytic software. Make sure that your sales team is using better tools or of the same caliber. Furthermore, prepare your staff on how to address new solutions/promotions that your competitors are selling. Does your solution offer a better price? If not, what tools can you give your sales team to overcome this obstacle with your prospects?

Preparing and mapping out key objections and obstacles prior to making sales calls will increase sales- guaranteed.

Eliminating competitor threats

Competitor Solution -Strengths | Weaknesses | Potential Threats

What does your target prospect already have with your competition? Evaluate and determine if features/ functions in your solution are a Nice to Have, Should Have, or a Must Have. Prepare your staff to avoid selling on features/functions that are Nice to Haves, and Should Haves. Tailor a sales process such as Paint-the-Picture ® around the weaknesses of your competitor to increase sales revenue. Thanks for reading and we encourage opinions and comments on this subject.

Related Links

Paint-the-Picture® -Sales Process

Evolution of a sales 2.0 as a strategy

Keyword Spy

©2010. Sales Result Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Eliminating competitor threats – sales blueprinting is a post from:

Examples of Sales 2.0 tools are Salesforce CRM, Cloud 9 analytics, Post Click, Web Ex and many other applications.

How does Sales 2.0 help my organization close more business?

Benefits to sales 2.0

• Improve insight on key metrics
• Ability to share successful practices with staff to reduce ramp up times
• Improve marketing effectiveness
• Improve communication for staff and consumers
• Shorten sales cycles
• Make more informed decisions

Applications such as Cloud 9 Analytics allows for more detailed information on marketing campaigns, sales practices, sales processes, and sales leadership. Sales 2.0 know allows your leadership to be more informed on gaps in all areas of your organization without having to waste costly time. Sales powerhouses have a common characteristic – they make sure that their strategies are well planned based on detailed insight.

A look at Cloud 9 Analytics

Common reasons for the failure to adopt Sales 2.0

• Sales 2.0 applications are viewed as cumbersome
• Lack of comprehensive training on sales 2.0 applications
• Incentives and other compensations have not been aligned with adoption of new applications
• Lack of belief in a reward from adopting sales 2.0

Tips for being effective with sales 2.0

• Gain the confidence of your leadership and top performers to adopt these applications to increase closing ratios
• Do not increase sales quotas immediately to compensate for cost, this must be done gradually
• Offer incentives and spiffs that are directly related to sales 2.0 application
• Have a defined sales process and tailor your sales 2.0 applications accordingly

Sales Result Inc has helped organizations worldwide to improve sales performance. SRi can help your organization effectively transition to adopting Sales 2.0 into your organization with minimal effort from your organization, results guaranteed. Contact us for more information by emailing us or contacting us at 1.877.427.2490.

Related Articles

Funnel Management

Do phone systems effect inside sales production

Evolution of Sales 2.0 as a strategy is a post from:

Funnel management begins with the way you manage your leads/opportunities. It is the process from which a lead enters your sales cycle and transitions through. One of the most important things about creating a sound funnel is making sure that your sales division is concentrating their energy on opportunities that have a high closing ratio.

Traditional funnel models have a tendency to have a high volume of leads initially entering. It can be said that having more leads entering into your funnel will allow more opportunities to be developed, and furthermore create more successful closing ratios. Yet some of the most successful sales powerhouses have developed a funnel model that succeeds traditional methodologies.

A good questions to ask yourself is do you have a clear message that sums up who you are as a company and what your bold claim is? Having a clear message and a bold claim that distinguishes you from your competitors is an essential part of making sure that your funnel develops the right opportunities. As opposed to having your sales force spending time on leads or opportunities that have a marginal interest in your solution, make sure that their time is focused on opportunities that are familiar with your organization and pose an interest. This not to be confused with the need to sell your solution, but creating a funnel model that filters leads before they ever enter the funnel is a common characteristic among successful sales powerhouses.

Need to develop a winning funnel model and process?

SRi offers funnel optimization will completely change the way your organization manages opportunities, with success guaranteed.

Funnel Management is a post from:

From everyone at Sales Result Inc (SRi) we would like to thank our readers for reading our blog posts. We are proud to announce a new agenda for the month of April. Our topic for the month of April will concentrate on Executive Access. All post on Executive Access will be posted under the category of Sales Leadership.

Executive Access will concentrate on how to build key strategic alliances, access new markets/companies or key individuals and talk about sales 2.0. SRi has had over 105 sales consulting engagements across the globe including the fortune 100. The mission of this month’s effort is to help our readers understand the challenges of executives as well develop an effective strategy to gain a competitive edge.

April 5 – Building a relationship with VITO’s, this article will cover how to increase the value you propose to VITO (very, important, top, officer.) This will help you understand VITO’s thought process, and leave you will a few simple strategies to prompt VITO to take action on your offer.

April 12–Principles of the funnel will have you asking yourself the question “what’s my funnel’s ability right now to close enough business to hit my quota?” This will give readers insight on why shifting focus from selling activities to consumer buying habits in paramount to create a sound funnel.

April 19–Sales 2.0 vs. traditional selling strategies, this article will discuss the shift in the new age sales 2.0 strategy. How does sales 2.0 compare to traditional selling, and is it effective to embed it into your sales strategy.

April 26–Eliminating competitor threats, economic challenges have created a need for ruthless competition in market. Leading a successful marketing campaign involves a strategy that will eliminate competitor threats. This article will give your leadership a plan on how to evaluate strengths and weaknesses that really matter.

Related Links

Sales Result Inc

SRi Executive Access Solutions

Sales Leadership Articles

©2010. Sales Result Inc. All Rights Reserved.

April Agenda | Executive Access is a post from:

So how much business is actually lost because of non-existent follow up calls? I’ve had the pleasure of monitoring thousands of sales calls. It is fascinating how much business is lost because of a poor follow up strategy. This actually has been one the most common road blocks in our SWOT analysis reports for sales organizations.

I was conducting a sales discovery recently and was listening to a sales call from an average sales performer. Average performers generally catch my interest because they have the fastest potential in developing into a top performer. This rep did a great job of articulating value during his demo. At the end of the call the rep gave the quote, sent an email and asked the prospect to feel free to call back if he had any other questions. I monitored this reps opportunity in CRM for the next two weeks. I was amazed at how the opportunity was managed.

Having a great demo or presentation is not enough during this competitive market to hit or exceed quotas. Simply articulating value during the sales call is only as effective as the follow up. The account was lost to a competitor that week because of a few simple things:

1. Not asking permission to follow up with the prospect after the demo
2. Poor understanding of consumer buying habits
3. Lack of SPIN selling ™
4. Not leaving the customer with something to look forward to in the follow up

Asking permission to follow up with your prospect can eliminate an awkward follow up or an aggressive approach. It also can help with understanding your opportunities schedule. Consumer purchasing habits are a must know how for your market. Blueprint your follow up time frames so that your opportunities don’t find a solution from your competitor.  SPIN selling is a great selling technique developed by Neil Rackham that stands for Situation-Problem-Implication-Need Payoff. SPIN selling is all about the art of advancing the sales call. Understanding SPIN selling is paramount to landing more accounts. A critical step in creating a successful follow up is leaving your opportunity with something to look forward too. This could be a something as simple as “thank you for your time today and I would like look in to a few things to see if there is any other possibility to give you an additional savings on this service. Would be OK to follow up with you next week sometime?”

From SRi we hope that this article was helpful to help you become a closer. For a complete selling solution SRi offers sales training solutions to develop your selling strategies and techniques. Good look selling and comments and questions are always welcome.

Landing the account through the proper follow up is a post from: