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SADMAN Assignment Group 10 - Section B Reading Summary The New Science of Sales Force Productivity

This reading summary discusses a new, scientific approach to improving sales force productivity. It outlines how the savviest sales leaders are reinventing their sales approaches by expanding target customer lists, boosting existing reps' productivity through help rather than just hiring top performers, and taking a data-driven approach. This includes segmenting customers using transaction data and criteria that correlate with business likelihood (Paragraph 2). It also discusses leveraging targeted offerings, optimized automation and tools, performance management based on both inputs and outputs, and systematic sales force deployment matching approaches to customer needs. Rather than relying on star performers, companies must use this scientific sales approach for predictable growth.

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34 views

SADMAN Assignment Group 10 - Section B Reading Summary The New Science of Sales Force Productivity

This reading summary discusses a new, scientific approach to improving sales force productivity. It outlines how the savviest sales leaders are reinventing their sales approaches by expanding target customer lists, boosting existing reps' productivity through help rather than just hiring top performers, and taking a data-driven approach. This includes segmenting customers using transaction data and criteria that correlate with business likelihood (Paragraph 2). It also discusses leveraging targeted offerings, optimized automation and tools, performance management based on both inputs and outputs, and systematic sales force deployment matching approaches to customer needs. Rather than relying on star performers, companies must use this scientific sales approach for predictable growth.

Uploaded by

RohanMohapatra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SADMAN Assignment Group 10 | Section B Reading Summary

The New Science of Sales Force Productivity


Today organisations want more and more sales from their sales professionals by just focusing
on the targets. Even though the world around them was changing, they were still handing
down targets from higher management and religiously putting more feet on the street, hoping
that some of those new reps would once again save the day.

Today, the savviest sales leaders are dramatically changing the way they run their groups.
They are reinventing their sales approaches to respond to new market environments. They are
expanding their lists of target customers beyond what anyone had previously considered.
They are boosting their sales reps’ productivity not by hiring the most-gifted individuals but
by helping existing reps sell more. As a result, their companies are growing at sometimes
startling rates.

What these leaders have in common might be called a scientific approach to sales force
effectiveness. It’s a method that puts systems around the art of selling, relying not just on gut
feel and native sales talent The traditional qualities of the rainmaker but also on data,
analysis, processes, and tools to re- draw the boundaries of markets and increase a sales
force’s productivity.

Putting Science into Sales -


GE’s Pilot understands how extensive a reinvention can be. As recently as the mid-1990s, the
company was still expecting sales teams to assemble and prioritize their own database of
prospects for their territories. The company’s field sales managers even manually classified
all the names in the division’s database as either high priority or low priority. Pilot’s first step
was to revise the way he segmented customers by using data that included records of past
company transactions. The new database held information such as four-digit standard
industrial classification codes, the type of equipment being leased, and so on. Then Pilot
asked his field managers to create a list of prospective-customer characteristics, criteria that
they believed would correlate with a customer’s likelihood of doing business with GE. He
took the 14 features they came up with, ran regression equations against the database of
transactions, and identified six criteria that had high correlations. If a prospective customer
tested well on those six criteria such as predicted capital expenditures and number of filings
for new business transactions, the probability that it would do business with GE was high.

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SADMAN Assignment Group 10 | Section B Reading Summary

Top Sales - A Science-Driven Approach -


In today’s selling environment, it’s not enough to rely on your star reps and hope for the best.
Any sales organization that wants to boost productivity should use a scientific approach to
selling based on a set of four levers.
1) Targeted offerings - Tailor your offerings to meet the needs of each segment, and
make sure reps are selling the right wares to the right prospects.
2) Optimized automation, tools, and procedures - Bolster your technology tools with
disciplined sales management processes, such as detailed pipeline discussions,
systematic account and territory plan reviews based on standard guidelines, defined
lead distribution processes with tracking through- out the sales cycle for both reps and
partners, and electronic dashboards for reps and territories.
3) Performance management - Measure and manage inputs, such as pipeline metrics
and competitive installations you want to target, but reward based on out- puts.
Calculate the time it will take new reps to begin generating revenue, and factor that in
to your sales planning. Pro- vide training and tools to reduce that time. Incorporate
metrics, incentives, and skill development into compensation systems to reward high-
performing reps.
4) Sales force deployment - Distribute your sales resources systematically, matching
sales approaches and channels to the needs and challenges of each customer segment.
Create teams for com- plex sales, and provide reps with support to help maximize
their productivity.

Beyond Best Practice -


Finding, attracting, and holding on to talented salespeople is more difficult than ever. And
companies can no longer afford to de- pend on them the way they once did. Relying on the
persuasive or relationship- building powers of a small group of talented individuals is simply
insufficient for predict- able, sustainable growth.

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