What Saavy Sales Leaders Are Doing to Improve B2B Sales Productivity | from the AA-ISP Leadership Summit
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Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Archives
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May 27, 2011 7:15 AM
At the AA-ISP Leadership Summit, forward-thinking sales leaders compared notes on what best-in-class inside sales teams are doing to improve their performance. Industry leaders briefed attendees on the results of their initiatives + reflections on industry trends.
Attending vendors shared their latest client achievements + product enhancements. Over coffee, everyone shared their ideas for improving B2B sales performance and overcoming barriers to doing so.
The key impressions I gained:
- people are the key resource + improved people management is the path to improved sales performance. Look for more science in this in the months + years ahead. Science that serves the artform of the task.
- effectiveness of execution on the front lines of sales matters. Coaching is key. Plenty of discussion around how to improve + enable it. Not yet obvious were best practices in it.
- for many sales leaders, there’s a struggle to balance the urgency of making their numbers, the considerable time + attention it takes to hone best practices, and the need for more + better sales coaching. Seemed to confirm what a global lead in sales training told me recently: the press to report numbers is trumping the known need for better coaching.
- sales alignment with marketing (or vice versa) wasn’t discussed much in the presentations I attended, nor hallway conversations I was privy to. Especially curious given CSO Insights finding that such alignment is one of the top issues for improved performance in 2011. Maybe it was there and I just missed it.
- much as was the case at the Sirius Decisions Summit, the greatest success and fastest progress seems to be occurring in firms that are taking small steps and improving incrementally. Best in class firms are accumulating better batting averages, not hitting home runs.
- top performing sales leaders are achieving their own greatest successes with the help of others in the room. Sales leadership is a team profession. The camaraderie was impressive.
- the process of improving B2B sales performance is a journey, and we’re not there yet.
A summary of my related tweets from the Summit on B2B sales productivity is available here
Originally posted on Informed Innovation in B2B Sales Productivity
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