White Papers on Sales Management

The Care and Selection of Manufacturer's Reps

You've decided to use manufacturer's reps as your outside sales organization. Now what? How do you go about getting the right ones? Managing independent sales reps adds another dimension of complexity to the already difficult sales management process. This paper helps you understand the key issues.

Closed-Loop Marketing/Sales Systems

Pressure is increasing in most companies to align marketing and sales activities. At least those marketing activities focused on the support of near-term sales. Gaining alignment between these two organizations and their often disconnected activities can be a challenge. However, increased competitive pressure requires a solution. This paper looks at the expanding role of "operations management" in marketing and sales as a potential solution to this issue.

Customer Relationship Management: Great Investment or Huge Expense

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology implementation is probably no the 'silver bullet' you are expecting. Too many users complain of a never-ending stream of updates, under-utilization, and a general postponement of the return on investment that you expected. It's not technology or which CRM package you choose that's the problem.

Improving Your Sales Management

Changing the way you think about managing your sales functions can be scary. But if what you were doing was working to your satisfaction, change would not be necessary. As the world becomes more competitive, Sales is forced to find new ways to be more efficient and effective. By applying management principles proven in other parts of your business you can dramatically improve your sales management ability and your sales results.

Inside Sales: A Secret Weapon

The need to increase sales and lower the cost of selling has driven many previously reluctant sales managers to consider adding an inside sales function to their sales process. If you are considering adding an inside sales function to your sales process, or if you would like to improve the inside sales function you have, this paper reviews key issues for success.

The Marketing & Sales Disconnect

The disconnect, some call it war, between marketing and sales is found whenever the two functions exist in a company, and at least one person works in each department. Periodically this issue raises its head and people consider its causes and symptoms. To the best of our knowledge this "problem" has existed for many decades and has shown no sign of remission despite many efforts to find a cure. Is that because sales is from Mars and marketing is from Venus, or perhaps it is just a "law of nature?" We think no on both counts. All prior solutions have been looking in the wrong place. We offer new direction, a map to the solution, and no charge for the map.

Sales Forced Automation

Has your company recognized the need to become more customer-centric? To think outside-in instead of inside-out? Many companies have made that decision, at least by words. The proof comes from deeds or actions. For a number of these companies one of the first steps in their attempt to change is the belief that software tools are necessary to make this transition viable. While this may be true, it is not necessarily the best first step.

A Secret to Increased Sales: Stop Guessing What to Do to Increase Sales

Growing revenue is something most companies want all the time. When business is good, sales increase "naturally," even if that pace is slower than it could be. In downturns, companies scramble to find ways to increase sales. Except for those few companies with a truly dominant market share, most companies can increase sales anytime they really want to. This paper looks at why that statement is not audacious.

Teaming Inside & Outside Sales

As more companies understand the value of inside sales people, more inside sales teams are deployed. If your company uses outside sales people you can increase their efficiency and effectiveness by teaming them with inside sales people. The value of that teaming and the keys to doing it well are discussed in this paper.