Banish the Waste from Sales and Marketing: Think Different!
One of the most valuable questions I ask sales and marketing teams is,
“What kinds of things clearly add no value to your sales and marketing operations?”
People react strongly. They give me examples like:
- Time spent nursing product quality problems
- Time spent on administration, reporting, and menial tasks (leaving little time for customers)
- Trade shows that generate boxes of “leads” not worth calling on
- Marketing literature that no one reads
- Wasting time with the wrong prospects
What is surprising is that these Read more
What Value Does Your Process Create for the Customer?
As a sales manager 18 years ago, when I first asked myself this question, I distinctly remember the feeling of the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. I didn’t know the answer then. However, I do now, and you need to know it too. Read more
Is Your Sales Process Lighting the Way or Shrouded in Mystery?
Many people believe that sales and marketing should be more organized, more accountable, and more predictable. This is much easier said than done, of course. In working with these organizations over the years as a manager, a leader, and a consultant, I’ve uncovered some patterns that you can learn from. Read more
How Lean Is Your Sales Process?
“Lean Thinking” (by James Womack and Daniel Jones, Free Press, June 2003) helped galvanize a radical approach to managing manufacturing organizations that smooths out production flow, making it far more productive and responsive. Inevitably, some people wonder if “Lean thinking” could apply to sales and marketing—whether it could smooth out Read more
Quantifying hard benefits of sales process improvement
Recently, the following question appeared on the www.iSixSigma.com discussion forum. It is a telling question, and the answer is crucial to every company today:
“Our organization has started using Six Sigma for marketing and sales projects. We’ve instituted metrics like “conversion of leads,” “improving cross-sell per employee,” “improving productivity.” “Why is it that quantifying the benefits of these projects often seems ambiguous?”
The reason sales process improvement projects have ambiguous results has little to do with Six Sigma, and a great deal to do with Read more
If Your Selling Isn’t Creating Customer Value, It Is Destroying Customer Value
Pfizer, the worlds largest pharmaceutical maker, recently (December 2006) announced that it was laying off 2000 of its 10,000 person sales force. According to Charles Green (author of “Trust-Based Selling,” and co-author of “The Trusted Advisor”), a reason for this is that the productivity of the sales force has plumeted, Read more
