2. Agenda
Sales Management Impact on Business Development
What is ‘Best-in-class’?
What do ‘Best-in-class’ do?
Proactive Sales Management vs. Reactive Sales Management
Coach the Coaches
Best-in-Class invest in their Sales Managers
Sales Management Business Pressures
Enabling Technology to Maximize Business Development Efforts
Conclusions
3. Sales Management Impact on Business Development
6 Research Studies:
2. Aberdeen Group
- Sales Training 2011 Uncovering How the Best-In-Class Sustain, Reinforce &
Leverage Best Selling Practices
- Lead to Win 2012 Managing People, Process and Technology to Optimize the
Last Mile of the Sales Cycle
- Sales Performance Management 2012 Managing People, Process and
Technology to Optimize the Last Mile of the Sales Cycle
- Sales Performance Management: Managing People, Process and Technology
to Optimize the Last Mile of the Sales Cycle
• Sales for Life – Sales Survey 2010
• Canadian Federation of Independent Business – Canada’s Training Ground:
SME’s $18 billion Investment in the Nation’s Workforce
• Rabemananjara, Parsley: Relations between employee’s training decisions and
business strategies and human resource management practices: a study by size
of business (Industry Canada)
• Lieb: Principles of Adult Learning
• Thomas International 2011 - Sales Performance Study: A review of high-
performing sales professionals in North America
4. What is ‘Best in Class’?
Aberdeen Study
970 end-user organizations:
87% average overall attainment of sales
quota in the last measured year, compared
with 49% among Industry Average firms
and 4.0% within Laggard companies.
9.5% average year-over-year increase in
average number of proposals, quotes or
RFP responses delivered to
customers/prospects,per sales rep, per
month, versus a 2.2% Increase for Industry
Average firms and 1.8% reduction among
Laggards.
4.5% year-over-year increase in lead
conversion rates (sales accepted lead to
close), vs. 1.1% within Industry Average
and 2.4% decrease for Laggard companies.
5. What do ‘Best in Class’ do?
Provide Sales Managers
customized training & content,
distinct from that offered to
sales representatives
Maintain a focus on frequent
training activities for both sales
reps and managers
Embed sales training content
into both easily accessible
knowledge repositories, as well
as linking it to defined CRM
sales stages
Ensure an aggressive approach
to ongoing reinforcement and
refreshment of sales training
skills and content provided
Gain and retain executive-level
sponsorship for sales training
initiatives
7. Coach the Coaches
52% of Sales Leaders believe one-on-one coaching is their
No. 1 training tool – while only 24% of Sales Performers rate
their manager’s one-on-one Coaching as effective.*
Sales Leaders rate their coaching as the No. 1 tool for
developing sales performers while 47% of sales performers
rate their managers coaching as ‘Needs Improvement’**
• 67% of respondents stated they do over 90% of their sales calls without any
management feedback
• 25% of respondents stated they receive 0 days of training/year.
• 62% of respondents stated they receive between 0-5 days of training/year.
• Conclusion: Sales Managers require training in contemporary Coaching Practices and
need to spend more time in the field coaching!
8. Best-in-Class Invest in Management Development to
Demonstrate Significant Year-over-Year Success
9. Sales Manager Business Pressures
Besides the obvious ‘Meet my
targets!’ there are important sub-set
pressures most sales managers face.
In each case, reps that are
performing at peak significantly
reduce the pressure on both the
Manager and the Company
In particular, prospecting for new
business with both new accounts
and cross-selling in existing
accounts can make/break target
acquisition
10. Enabling Technology to Enhance Business Development
CORE TRAINING FIELD PERFORMANCE CRM TRACKING COACHING
• Tracking of sales performers must
include the ‘inputs’ (where in the
sales process), as well as, the
‘outputs’ (results)
• Pro-active Sales Managers
concentrate their coaching efforts on
the ‘inputs’ - where does their rep
need specific coaching...
• Tracking tools (paper & pencil, crm,
etc.) are only as good as the data
submitted. Therefore, input time and
information must be kept to a
minimum.
11. Conclusions
To become ‘Best-in-Class’ (leading industry in Business Development performance
indicators) requires Senior Management Committment
‘Best-in-Class’ recognize the extraordinary importance of the Sales Manager role
Regular Field Coaching is critical to ongoing Sales Rep Development and use of
proper business development skill sets
Field coaching needs to be ‘proactive’ vs. ‘reactive’
Sales performers are under-impressed with their manager’s coaching capabilities
Organizations that invest in training their Sales Managers and Reps have lower
turnover - and subsequent higher performance
Using Technology (eg. CRM) will provide Sales Managers with proactive coaching
priorities
Organizations need to tie their sales cycle content into their knowledge
repositories