The Salesperson .... the Most Important Component in B2B Marketing?

For companies selling high value products and services business to business isn’t the salesperson  the most important part of the marketing mix?

This may not be true in business to consumer selling where advertising ensures that a consistent message is given to the potential customer.

Despite this critical importance, in company after company, there is a startling difference between the performance of the best performing sales people and the average performers – in the same company!

Typically, just a small percentage of the sales team (around 10% of the total sales team) will bring in 65% -80% of the total revenue.  Which means that the most critical success factor in the marketing mix – the sales machine - is performing sub - optimally in too many companies.

Accompany a few salespeople from the same team on prospect or customer calls and you see can why.

So different is the individual approach to how they conduct meetings with prospects that a visitor from outer space might think they were working for different companies. The skills gap between the best and the average is huge.

Despite this critical importance, in company after company, there is a startling difference between the performance of the best performing sales people and the average performers – in the same company!
Typically, just a small percentage of the sales team (around 10% of the total sales team) will bring in 65% -80% of the total revenue.

Many sales VPs say they intend to short cut the “ramp up” time by recruiting only experienced, successful sales people who have proven domain and account knowledge. According to CSO Insights 52% of firms planning to hire more salespeople expect to recruit experienced salespeople from their own industry.
The problem with this approach is that the best people are in short supply and are likely to stay put in a recession (and by the way if you happen to have any they may be targeted by other companies). There just aren’t enough of them to go around. So what is the answer? We believe that you should look at recruiting bright young graduates and train them up and also, crucially, work to improve the effectiveness of the majority of the sales team.

Hence, the gfa Sales Improvement mission – to help companies figure out why and how the underperforming majority can raise their game.

“The Biggest Return You Can Make”...By a Man Who Should Know...

“I’m a firm believer that the biggest return on anything you can do is to make your sales people more productive... it is not optimising back office processing.. it is not fine tuning finance... it is not about improving the quality of manufacturing... the biggest contribution you can generate to the bottom line comes from increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales force..”

(John Williams, former senior VP Worldwide Operations, StorageTek Corporation. Over 4 years, Williams grew sales from $700 million to $2.2 billion without adding more salespeople)

You can work with your people to improve their performance using internal resources. Or you can ask us to help you. Why not talk to us about how innovative coaching methods, rather than traditional sales training, can help you increase your team’s selling effectiveness and accelerate sales performance?

Let’s see if we could help you to significantly raise the sales game of the majority of all of your salespeople, outsell your competitors and blow your sales targets away.

This is the site for CEOs, Sales, Marketing VPs and Directors, Training and Development Managers in ...

IT, Hi Tech and Professional Services Companies...

Who want to improve their sales results fast. 

Call us on 01608 66 37 52 or

email graham@sellingcoach.co.uk

 Some of our White Papers:

· “Four Facts You Should Know About Selling Effectiveness”
· “Why Coaching?”
· “Today’s Top issues For Sales Chiefs”
· “Why Most Sales training is Money Down the Drain”

Please see 'CONTACT US' page to request any of these White Papers