Sales team members often find themselves getting the short end of the stick. Though they’re expected to hit rigorous sales quotas, they often have little control over the quality of leads being sent to them from marketing – or any influence over the buyer journey at all, up until the very end.
Those of us who have been sales professionals in the life sciences industry for the past ten years know how drastically the role has changed in that short amount of time. Before digital marketing and online ordering centers, the role of the salesperson was to inform potential clients about their products and how these products were needed to improve their work operations with the hopes of booking an order.
What part of your company’s marketing game are you ready to turn upside down?
Ameeta Soni, experienced marketing executive and business consultant, shares her tips about sales enablement strategies for any business
A solid sales team is hard to get…And even harder to retain.
The sales process has evolved in the last decade–have your hiring practices?
I was having lunch with Jen Pike, founder of Rockethouse Consulting, when we began lamenting a somewhat popular point of view among a segment of executives — that marketers don’t matter anymore. There are many arguments we’ve heard: “the CEO is the Chief Marketer,” “every employee is a marketer,” “marketing wastes money,” “I see no value in marketing,” “marketing is all luck so why spend money on it,” and so on.
Pike has an interesting perspective on why she believes this is wrong. Below are some highlights from the discussion.
Are elite salespeople born or made? After years of studying this subject, John Asher, CEO of Asher Sales Strategies, says, “Both.” He’s identified and developed five factors for sales success that can help business leaders and sales professionals grow their business.
Unless your business strategy is to be a fast-follower (an increasingly risky and dangerous strategy), you invariably have markets or market segments in which your objective is to be the Market Leader.
If you work with business customers – as an account manager, an owner, a consultant or a customer happiness representative – you know that great service doesn’t mean that friendliness fixes the problem. Results trump even the most friendly interactions. For business-to-business client relationships especially, customer satisfaction isn’t driven by a one-time issue resolution. Instead, it’s about forming and maintaining real, long-term relationships.
