{"id":2466,"date":"2023-12-15T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/?p=2466"},"modified":"2023-10-21T09:53:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T13:53:50","slug":"sales-doing-more-with-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/?p=2466","title":{"rendered":"SALES \u2013 Doing more with less \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe best kind of marketing tells the truth, it\u2019s concise and engaging.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Misc.: competitors, peers, gross margins, FTE (full time equivalent)<\/li>\n<li>Productivity \u2013 driving higher productivity.<\/li>\n<li>Seek efficient growth<\/li>\n<li>Profitable growth &#8211; transformative\u2014and disruptive<\/li>\n<li>Capability gap \u2013 leaders &amp; laggards \u2026<\/li>\n<li>Sales organization \u2013 be more calibrated in how they work &#8211; squeezing out value<\/li>\n<li>What do top tier companies do differently \u2013 capabilities prioritizing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Three areas:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Free up seller time for customer-facing activities.<\/li>\n<li>Prioritize the most valuable opportunities.<\/li>\n<li>Do a better job developing high-performing talent.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Radically offload and automate non-sales activities<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Non-selling activities = 2\/3 of average sales team\u2019s time<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>33% = customer-facing time<\/li>\n<li>66% = non-customer facing\n<ul>\n<li>Lead qualification<\/li>\n<li>Opportunity management<\/li>\n<li>Configuration, pricing, and quoting (CPQ)<\/li>\n<li>Order management<\/li>\n<li>Post sales activities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ideas<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sales team capacity | smart workflows<\/li>\n<li>Analyze customer data \u2013 identify leads, score leads re: value potential<\/li>\n<li>Outreach \u2013 specific journey stage(s) &amp; negotiate guidance<\/li>\n<li>Focus on seller experience<\/li>\n<li>Toggling between systems [stop this]<\/li>\n<li>Ensure actual and deal-level insights are presented in a user-friendly way<\/li>\n<li>Seller adoption: increase productivity, conversion, and sales<\/li>\n<li>Start with simple steps and get them refined rapidly<\/li>\n<li>Decrease order entry times<\/li>\n<li>Lift in sales | lead enrichment<\/li>\n<li>Shared service centers [50%of non-selling tasks]<\/li>\n<li>Automation | AI capabilities [generative AI]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Ruthlessly focus on the most valuable opportunities [size of opportunity!]<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Decrease time with\/on customers that contribute 20% or less to company\u2019s revenues<\/li>\n<li>Intensive sales engagement for high-value accounts \u2013 lowering \u201ccost to serve\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Prioritize accounts by spend and growth potential<\/li>\n<li>Third-party data to refiner segmentation and define next-best-action opportunities<\/li>\n<li>Build a data-mart \u2013 use variables with predictive power<\/li>\n<li>Identify growers with a high propensity to spend<\/li>\n<li>Sales steering tool: focus data on highest-value opportunities vs. time spent<\/li>\n<li>Sales meetings: which customers to contact with what offer and messaging<\/li>\n<li>Support teams: pitch decks and materials -&gt; to get up and running quickly<\/li>\n<li>Account coverage<\/li>\n<li>Calendar, email, activity data (other)<\/li>\n<li>Tech stacks | analytics | prescriptive insights<\/li>\n<li>Have a clear expectation for where future growth will come from \u2013 and where not \u2013 helps leaders de-prioritize their long-tail opportunities and find ways to serve these slower-growth accounts more efficiently.<\/li>\n<li>Often smaller companies, with less complex needs, met through self-serve digital channels or through remote engagement with inside sales team, or engaging with distributors<\/li>\n<li>Service levels \u2013 eg, shipping options, MOQs, &#8211; adjust to different account types<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cultivate and motivate high-performance talent<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sellers are the productive engine of any sales organization<\/li>\n<li>Top performers \u2013 fine tuning skills development, sales steering<\/li>\n<li>Tying incentives to specific seller targets<\/li>\n<li>Specific skills with high-performance in each channel and role<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Learning journeys<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Channel specific learning journeys<\/li>\n<li>Skills to drive customer performance\/productivity<\/li>\n<li>Certification program<\/li>\n<li>Financial and non-financial rewards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ideas<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Performance steering \u2013 KPIs vs. create business specific guidance to focus and direct seller activities<\/li>\n<li>Customer insights<\/li>\n<li>Price recommendation engines<\/li>\n<li>Predict and prevent customer churn<\/li>\n<li>Incentive schemes: From quota-driven models to align incentives dynamically in response to strategic priorities<\/li>\n<li>Prediction model: customers most at-risk for churn<\/li>\n<li>20% of bonus payout success linked to lowering account churn risk \u2013 cut customer attrition<\/li>\n<li>Daily or weekly huddles to stimulate customer conversations \u2013 problem solve customer issues collaboratively, discuss best ways to support specific sales actions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe best kind of marketing tells the truth, it\u2019s concise and engaging.\u201d Ideas Misc.: competitors, peers, gross margins, FTE (full time equivalent) Productivity \u2013 driving higher productivity. Seek efficient growth Profitable growth &#8211; transformative\u2014and disruptive Capability gap \u2013 leaders &amp; laggards \u2026 Sales organization \u2013 be more calibrated in how they work &#8211; squeezing out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2467,"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions\/2467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.markkirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}