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Valgen - Analytics for Sales Productivity Blog

November 2010

Top 10: Performance issues that keep sales managers up at night

By admin
November 21, 2010
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One of the hottest recent Q&A topics at the Focus.com Sales forum dealt with this question: “What are the 10 things sales managers should be most worried about in maximizing performance?” Below is Valgen’s answer from our analytics view: * * * * * I am going to answer this question a bit more from my perspective, which is how can managers using data and insights to improve performance. These are worrisome in the sense that being insidious, if left unmanaged they could lead to real headaches. Customer:  Let’s put the customer front and center here. How well do they know the customer, both historical as well as expected behavior? If they do not anticipate and use both dimensions to add value to every customer interaction, then this could be the most worrisome aspect of all. Cycle:  Do the sales people have a good idea of customer buying cycles, and have a consistent process to manage these customer touches? CRM System:  How well are they using the CRM system? Is it up to date, enriched with analytics and metrics, and easy to use? Are you training, listening to feedback and making it work for them? Educate:  Have an active outreach program …Read More

Why “call often” is like “one size fits all” — usually not the best fit for customers

By admin
November 18, 2010
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We’ve heard phrases like “call often,” “call everybody,” and “call until you get an order” espoused as sales and marketing strategies. But we should evaluate whether this approach produces the best ROI, particularly when cost per call is high. This is a key issue with sales productivity. Outbound calling has direct costs of the rep’s time, mileage and/or telecom utility costs, indirect overhead costs, and the opportunity cost of not calling a customer who would have ordered instead. Let’s expand on the last component and explore its role in determining sales productivity. Sales 2.0 is about nurturing and facilitating the buying cycle, even in a transactional sales model. Your B2B customer is buying what they need – technology products, office supplies and medical supplies for example – driven by the demand for their services and sales needs, not from their benevolence to your sales person, to borrow from Adam Smith the pioneering economist. In other words, a company that is larger, expanding faster, and experiencing increased end-consumer demand is simply going to buy more often. So when we apply an average – which is what a “call often” mandate implies – we aren’t putting the customer’s buying cycle first. This doesn’t respect the customer’s …Read More

How to increase sales force adoption of BI initiatives

By admin
November 18, 2010
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“We’ve tried that before.” “It’s too cumbersome and I don’t get much for the trouble.” “Yes, but that doesn’t apply to me (or my customers).” These are statements about business intelligence (BI) we’ve heard echoed by sales reps in a number of organizations. It’s no doubt an endless source of frustration to well-intentioned practitioners and sales managers who want to bring the science of data-driven decision-making to boost productivity on the front line. Like closing the deal in any sales setting, overcoming these objections requires forethought, meaningful engagement and putting the customer first – in this case the reps – when implementing a BI or analytical initiative. So, if you could get into their heads… what would the sales reps want? More dollars with same or less effort Provide tactical actions Streamline, simplify their workflow Let’s cut to the chase. Can the solution actually make them significantly more money, consistently, for the same or less effort? Offer specific, contextual and timely actions that reps can follow without doing a lot of thinking. Don’t make them pull data and run reports. Just like stock market recommendations – buy, sell, hold. Simple actions. Do not allow room for a lot of interpretation. …Read More

Improve lead generation with analytics

By admin
November 8, 2010
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Lead generation comes in all forms, from the old standby of print and email list rentals, to emerging and evolving online search strategies. For offline lists, the focus of this article, there are two types:  active and compiled lists. After explaining the differences between the two, we’ll focus on compiled lists and best practices to improve lead generation results from prospecting efforts. Active lists reflect recent (i.e., less than 12 months ago) activity such as magazine subscribers, event attendees, responders or buyers. These are often contact-level lists. Buy small samples from each list to test response before investing in a bigger campaign. Check that there is sufficient quantity of names available for a larger rental later, and be sure to take into account any subtractions such as do-not-mails, geographic limitations, etc. You can select desirable attributes relevant to your targeting needs, such as contact title and decision-making authority. But caution:  although selects can produce more targeted prospects, they dramatically lower the available universe of names. Selects may also not be indicative of response until you have tested the list several times. Compiled lists are a broad compilation of individual or company records. Due to the extensive number of records gathered, you will often have a number …Read More