2010 November

Scaling Sales – Welcome!

Posted by | Sales Productivity | One Comment
Increasing sales productivity in business-to-business environments with complex sales cycles has been a never-ending pursuit.  In his book 'Birth of a Salesman',   Walter Friedman chronicles the 200 page playbook (later scaled down to 55 pages) that John Patterson, the founder of NCR, assembled in the late 19th century in his attempt to get his salepeople to systematically present and sell his cash registers.

Patterson was unusually focused on sales tools for his salesforce and was rewarded with one of the most successful companies in business history.  But this level of focus on tools to scale sales is unusual and the problem of low sales productivity is still very much with us.  CSO Insights documents in their annual survey of 1300 sales executives that only 52% of sales reps made their quotas in 2009.

This blog will pursue the conversation of B2B sales productivity, its role in scaling sales organizations and the critical role of sales tools in capturing sales best practices and driving sales growth.

Best Practice Customer Stories

Posted by | best practices, customer stories | One Comment

We’ve been busy delivering sales playbooks and haven’t posted in over a year. We’ve learned a lot from the 12 projects we’ve delivered since the last article and would like to share some of these insights here. This post is about the best way to frame and deliver an important sales tool, the customer story.

Customer Stories Are Key to Establishing Credibility

For the sales rep, credibility is king. The more credibility a sales rep has with a prospect, the more likley a win. But how do you establish credibility? Knowing your product and features is a good start, but it won't be enough in most sales cycles.

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