SalesForceXP: January-February 2010
The Pitch
Wait a Minute! What Happened to "Brand?"
One fundamental of learning to fly on instruments that every pilot learns is "scan your instrument panel." It has tons of information about where you are, where you're going, how the engines are performing, and the temperature in coach. Fixating on any one instrument, which often happens at the beginning of instrument training, can jeopardize situational awareness and maintaining aircraft control. [311-word article]
Cover Story
How Do You Quantify Employee Engagement?
ROI is a magic code word in business. It stands for the "ruthless bean counters" who ask one simple question in response to any proposal. What will I gain if I do it? [588-word article]
The pursuit of ROI is a noble one. High-performing businesses have built their competitive strategies around data-driven insights that generate impressive bottom line results. As a sales manager, you must continually ask whether you're using the data available to you to out-think your rivals? If not, you may be missing out on a potent competitive tool. [863-word article]
Your People Have the ROI Power
Fully 70 percent of most companies' operating costs are invested in its people, yet few businesses take the time to accurately gauge the return they are getting from their employees, says Kirk Hallowell, a training and employee engagement specialist. [336-word article]
Closers
If A Company Tweets In the Woods...
There are three different ways of using social media if you've got a sales focus in the b2b world. [1386-word article]
IMRA Directory
Meet Your New Best Friend - The IMRA Rep
Motivating your salespeople is difficult. Commissions are never enough and bonuses are expected, down economy or not. [370-word article]
Incentive Products
New products from longtime incentive idustry suppliers. [378-word article]
Off Sites
What Is the Customer Satisfaction Level of Your Meetings?
The beating that the business travel and events industries have taken during the down economy has been widely reported. Undoubtedly, some valuable off-sites have been eliminated, and experts say it will be difficult to get them back into budgets once the economy does rebound. [1081-word article]
Return on Xtra Performance
More Training Equals More Sales
A leading manufacturer of eyeglass lenses wanted to motivate a national circuit of independent sales reps to complete online training courses about new product lines and promote their brands to eye care professionals. [320-word article]
The Leap: Moving Into Management
20 Ways to Wreck Your Management Career
"Don't think for a minute that you're not in complete control of how far you go and how successful you are," says strategy consultant Steve Tobak. "I've seen dozens and dozens of brilliant, competent, and driven managers shoot themselves in the foot, but I've almost never seen one lose his way due to external factors." [398-word article]
Five Steps to Better Leadership
In order to prevent a system-wide leadership gap, businesses need to create a cohesive approach to leadership development. Unfortunately, states a report by the Center for Creative Leadership, many organizations lack a coherent sense of what needs to be developed and how to go about it. CCL provides these five steps to help bridge the gap between current leadership talent and future leadership needs... [237-word article]
A recent survey by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) investigating the skills and knowledge necessary to lead business teams indicates that leadership skills in today's organizations are insufficient for meeting current and future needs. "A gap between current leadership bench strength and future leadership demands is a serious liability," the report states. [420-word article]
The Sales Funnel
10 Steps to Writing Better E-Mails
Writing e-mail isn't exactly Shakespeare, but there's an art to it nonetheless. [351-word article]
Developing Your Sales Metric Management System
There are a ton of statistics that provide visibility into the activities of a sales team. It's easy to get lost in that sea of data. [279-word article]
Don't Worry About Problems You Can't Impact
The author and leadership guru Stephen Covey encourages us to only focus on concerns that we have control over. [357-word article]
Get Your Salespeople to Adopt an Ownership Mentality
The surest way to create a high-performing sales team is to instill a sense of ownership. It begins with having salespeople help set their goals. [303-word article]
Sales Support: The Pit Crew That Helps You Win the Race
Show me a successful sales team and it's a good bet there are some key non-sales support people behind the scenes keeping things running. [306-word article]
Social networks and associated technologies have hit epidemic proportions, which makes David Armano's look at social media trends for 2010 both timely and important. [217-word article]
The Best-Kept Secret of Sales Research
The best way to convert more prospects into customers is to find better prospects. But how can you be certain your salespeople are targeting the best prospects? [385-word article]
There has been a lot of talk for a long time now about the importance of embracing change in the workplace. A manager who shows even the slightest resistance to change risks being criticized for steering his company into the slow lane and letting competitors speed by. [338-word article]
Top Performers
Incentive ideas from our advertisers. [787-word article]
What Works - Social Media
How to cut through the social media noise and be heard: [294-word article]
LinkedIn introduced its Follow Company tool in April, and it immediately proved to be an invaluable sales tool. [80-word article]
Measuring the Value of Your Social Media Efforts
Blogging shouldn't be mistaken as only a consumer marketing tool. Indeed, regular blogging to a niche audience in the B2B environment can dramatically impact sales leads. [263-word article]
Social media is a great relationship-building tool. So why do so many b2b companies start and end their online efforts at selling? [365-word article]
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The First Step To Designing A Winning Sales Compensation Plan |
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Is your sales compensation plan helping you get the most from your sales people? Listen to this episode of the Sales Management Minute to learn the first question to ask yourself when designing an effective sales compensation plan.
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Audio. 60 sec. - 09/01/2010 |
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