Understanding the Sales Force

Yesterday, while speaking in DC, I asked my usual questions, but the response to one of the questions left me scratching my head. It wasn’t a new question; as a matter of fact, I’ve been asking it for years. And, as you can see below, I’ve been writing about the pipeline in various ways for years:

They are three separate things but not three distinct data points:

What your salespeople know – for certain – a data point. This is the information that prospects and customers provide – that proves to be valid – in response to your salespeople’s questions. For example, if one of your salespeople asks which competitors the prospect is speaking with, the answers could be as varied as:

As part of its sales force evaluation process, Objective Management Group (OMG) conducts a pipeline analysis and determines both the quality of the pipeline and the quantity of the pipeline. We ask each salesperson to submit 4 proposal-ready opportunities and then we run the analysis.

The statistics are staggering. In some sectors, fewer than 25% of all salespeople will make quota in 2012. Even best-in-class companies are lucky when fewer than 80% of their salespeople make quota. Are you OK with it when your own salespeople fail to make quota? There are a number of possible reasons for this widespread mediocrity and failure and, depending on the company, some or all of them may apply.

For double article Friday, in addition to my Sales Pipeline Nazi article, I have the following bonuses for you:

Today, more than ever before, strategic partnerships, both formal and informal, are an important element of conducting business. They exist at all levels, including these 10:

When most sales bloggers write about selling, we almost always discuss direct B2B sales. Ignored in all of these articles are those clients and companies that sell through channels. The channels are many, and include stocking distributors, brokers, retailers, VARs, agencies, partners, resellers, rep firms and more. The salespeople charged with selling to and through a channel are different – in many ways – and their goals, expectations, activities, skill sets and strategies must be different as well.

Not too long ago, before the advent of social selling, if a salesperson needed to add new opportunities to the pipeline, there were basically two options:

Make cold calls; or
Call existing customers for referrals and introductions.

The Growing Power of Inside Sales appeared on the Harvard Business Review Blog on July 29. Overall, the article was quite good with valid sources and statistics. On the other hand, it was flawed in that, as usual with articles like this, it cited examples from only large companies (Astra Zeneca, IBM and SAP) leading most readers to come to one of two conclusions: