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A Q&A from Sales & Marketing Management

The authors of “The Challenger Sale,” explain the logic behind their controversial notion that selling is more about confidence and less about relationships...

A Q&A from Sales & Marketing Management

SMM: There has been a lot of debate online about the theories you propose in your new book. Before we get to those, however, why did the world need another sales book?

By accelerating your sales reps' capacity to connect in real time by phone with the people you want them to reach by a factor of 10, you can optimize sales performance in powerful ways that aren’t available when live conversations are spread out over days and weeks instead of hours and minutes. Here are five key sales call steps to focus on and measure in order to stake out a competitive advantage.

By TOM GRUBB

Traditionally, sales teams operated independently from marketing departments. But that was then and this is now. Companies that have increased alignment of their sales and marketing functions are enjoying much greater success. Here are three steps that can help you get there.

By WILL WIEGLER

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has an amazing ability to bring clarity to complicated world events by pulling apart the pieces and, often, finding apt analogies that enhance his messages. He did it in a column titled “Help Wanted.”

In it, Friedman talks about one of his favorite topics — the merger of globalization and the information technology revolution — and its impact on countries from around the world. He’s struck by the similarity of remarks by activist journalists in both Egypt and Russia who were commenting on the pushback that those countries’ leaders encountered when they tried to simply reappoint themselves leaders of their respective countries.

“The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over,” Friedman quotes Dov Seidman, the CEO of LRN, a workplace culture consultant, and the author of the book “How.” “The old system of ‘command and control’ — using carrots and sticks — to exert power over people is fast being replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’ — to generate power through people.”

Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will, adds Seidman. “Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your citizens or customers or employees.”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has an amazing ability to bring clarity to complicated world events by pulling apart the pieces and, often, finding apt analogies that enhance his messages. He did it in a column titled “Help Wanted.”

Most salespeople possess some level of intuitive negotiating skills, but many lack the discipline necessary to simultaneously sell and negotiate. The result can be less value for the company and fewer bonus dollars for them. In this first part of a two-part article, we assess five questions that can help you determine your team's negotation weak spots.

By GRANDE LUM

Many managers think their sales teams need help building their negotiation skills but can’t articulate why. Most salespeople possess some level of intuitive negotiating skills, but many lack the discipline necessary to simultaneously sell and negotiate. The result can be less value for the company and bonus dollars for them.

By JOHN GOLDEN

The idea of controlling or imposing your will on the king is one that historically has not worked well in politics and is even less likely to work in commerce. So let’s face up to the reality that we can either pursue a futile strategy of trying to control the customer or we can willingly give up that control and look at ways of meeting our customers’ needs at different junctures in the buying process according to how they want those needs met.

By JOHN GOLDEN

While most sales organizations subscribe to the concept of being buyer-focused, particularly in the complex sale, it has always been accompanied by the belief that a seller can bring value to a customer at many different junctures during a sales cycle, which in turn relies on the salesperson gaining access to the buyer at these various junctures.

By SCOTT RICHARDSON

Every minute saved counts in business, and efficiency is needed more than ever in these times of reduced headcounts. Synching up your marketing asset management (MAM) systems with core customer relationship marketing (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) is becoming a mainstream best practice across industries. But what constitutes a successful integration?

By SCOTT RICHARDSON

It starts with the realization that it would be useful to exchange data between your company’s marketing systems and your enterprise ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications.

By NICO SCHINAGL

One of your biggest enemies in this economy could be among your own sales team, leaving everything on the negotiating table and giving away add-ons like Halloween candy. Stop talking to your CFO about finding new ways to reduce your costs. Instead, the next time you sit down with your sales team, dig a little deeper than how the quarterly numbers compare to last year. You will find that by analyzing one metric and following a set of simple strategies you will be able to identify who in your sales force is playing for your team and who should be playing for somebody else. . 

By NICO SCHINAGL

Think the economy is hurting your profit margin? Think again.

By THOMAS A. FREESE

Salespeople like having checklists, goals and targets to hit. However, building trust with prospects and customers, which is a key component to increasing sales, cannot be an objective in and of itself, says author Thomas Freese. Trust has to happen over time as a salesperson is meeting – and hopefully exceeding – customer expectations in other areas.

By THOMAS A. FREESE

By PAUL RAFFERTY

Over the past three years, much attention has been paid to sales and marketing “alignment.” The need for integration between the two, in both tools and execution, has never been greater. However, most companies have not yet clearly identified and fixed the failure points. They can no longer simply work well side-by-side, but how best to get them to work together? Here are some ideas.

By PAUL RAFFERTY

Over the past three years, much attention has been paid to sales and marketing “alignment.” That is, these two functions have worked toward mutually defining the ideal prospect profile, how leads are scored, when marketing should hand-off to sales, when sales should hand back to marketing, etc.

By LIEF LARSON

Online sales processes work well for low-involvement and frequently purchased items, but it fails for complex, online-to-offline transactions in which product and sales professionals are still essential to the sales process.What’s needed is a blending of existing technology and slightly modified marketing and sales processes that enable companies to put their best people forward, in a comfortable and interactive fashion, whenever and wherever buyers are looking for information. Companies that embrace this change will be rewarded with higher customer satisfaction, more leads and shorter sales cycles.

By LIEF LARSON

For the last decade and a half, the focus of online business has been to take people out of the sales process. While this model works well for many types of low-involvement and frequently purchased items (books, consumer gadgets, toys, printer toner, shoes), it fails for complex, online-to-offline transactions in which product and sales professionals are still essential to the sales process.

By LOU SCHACHTER

Historically, most salespeople have not needed to scratch below the surface in understanding their customers’ businesses. Today, they have to know what the customer’s goals are, what metrics they use to measure success, and what business challenges they face. Only then can they help accelerate the customer’s results.

By LOU SCHACHTER

Remember Twister, the game where you spin a dial and get instructions to put your left foot on red and your right hand on green? Before long everyone is tangled together and dropping in a heap, laughing hysterically.

Unfortunately, a lot of direction that salespeople receive today is much like, “Put your left hand on yellow. Now place your right foot on blue.” As a result, salespeople are overwhelmed, confused, and quite frankly, tangled – and no one is happy.