(This post was originally published by the Market Research Executive Board and the Communications Executive Council but we have updated it from the sales perspective…)

For many years I looked to Bill Lumbergh from Office Space as my “what not to say” as a manager tutor (“I’m gonna need you to…”).

But we now have an updated list of phrases that should never pass a manger’s lips thanks to workplace expert Liz Ryan.  She recently blogged the 10 things only bad managers say.  Among the most groan-inducing:

• “I don’t pay you to think.”
• “Who gave you permission to do that?”
• “In these times, you’re lucky to have a job at all.”

What’s the common denominator behind these infuriating catchphrases? Clearly, it’s an overbearing approach to management, which is guaranteed to stifle any agility, innovation or creativity. Years back, this might have been deemed a minor irritant – a trivial complaint that employees’ whimsical ideas weren’t being taken seriously. But as more and more deals today become stuck in ‘no decision’, we’ve got to rely on creativity and innovation in order to get them to close. Read More »

Sales organizations are waking up to the numerous benefits of iPads and tablets, and are just realizing how the technology can help reps in their day-to-day activities.

In a recent member poll, 75% of respondents are already using tablet technology or plan to do so in the next 12 months. While this signals that members see the potential of tablets in Sales, the jury is still out on how effective this technology will be as a sales tool and what risks or drawbacks may be involved.

During our recent webinar on iPads® and Tablets as next-gen sales tools, Ben Calfee, VP of Sales Operations and Enablement at LexisNexis, and Shelley Lawrence, Ph.D, Director of Sales Operations at ENDO Pharmaceuticals, shared their initial experiences with iPads and tablets.

The discussion covered topics including:

• Tablet evaluation and pilot programs
• Potential uses for the technology
• Early results and sales force feedback
• Ongoing tablet support and long-term plans

Here are some excerpts from the Q&A: Read More »

We recently conducted an analysis of executives’ outlook on business conditions in Asia across 2012. The report surfaced some interesting data and findings about the overall sentiment and growth expectations for the region, but what really drew our attention were some of the sales-specific indicators.

Mainly, executives continue to be optimistic about top-line growth in Asia as well as the economic outlook for the region, though their expectations for the level of growth have waned slightly in the past quarter.

New research from our Emerging Markets team shows that 70% of polled executives expect their revenues in Asia to be higher in the next 12 months (down from 83% in the previous quarter), and many also expect their respective industries to continue expanding in Asia.

Positive sentiment on Sales continued to surge higher, as most respondents still anticipate higher sales to both new and existing customers in Asia across 2012. (Sentiment on sales to existing customers improved dramatically from the previous quarter.) Read More »

When faced with a tough business challenge, have you ever wanted the advice of someone that’s been in your shoes?

Across the past year, SEC members have asked more than 400 questions and received nearly 2,000 answers from peers on the SEC Discussions Q&A forums.

Below is a collection of the most popular discussions that took place across 2011 – these questions shed light on the issues that were top of mind to sales executives throughout the year, and the in-depth answers provided by peers provide helpful perspective on how organizations are tackling these sales-related challenges.

Top 5 Questions from the Sales Ops Forum: Read More »

A recent blog post on Harvard Business Review titled, “I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore,” was unfortunately very relatable.  The core of the article explored how business conversations have evolved into bits of nonsense (e.g., “synergy”, ”value-add”) that make understanding each other much more of a challenge than anything else.

We all fall victim to the excessive use of acronyms from time to time.  And while I too find myself guilty of using a lot of acronyms, I also related to something else in the piece, because its description ties perfectly to research produced by both the SEC and our sister program, the Customer Contact Council:

“Another term that has lost its meaning is ‘Let’s exceed the customer’s expectations.’ …Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. How can you exceed the customer’s expectations if you have no idea what those expectations are? I was at a [hotel] a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, ‘Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation.’  The best way to start would be to take down that sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do…”

While this was a retail customer setting, the same principle holds true for sales and service organizations.  Attempting to exceed customer expectations is a losing battle. You’ll unnecessarily spend resources trying to delight your customers, when research shows that doing so has only a marginal impact on customer loyalty.   Read More »

At last month’s annual Sales and Marketing Summit in Las Vegas, the SEC handed out our 2011 B2B Sales Awards. We were thrilled to celebrate the achievements of some of the most progressive organizations in the SEC membership. Awards were given in three categories: Adoption of Insight, Excellence in Sales Operations, and Commercial Achievement.

Without further ado, the recipients of this year’s sales awards were…

Adoption of Insight Award Winner: Treasury Wine Estates

The Adoption of Insight award is given to a company that is particularly good at taking action. This award recognizes an organization’s ability to take good ideas and turn them into actual tools, processes, and approaches that change behaviors. And we were very pleased to present this award to Darren Campbell, General Manager of Field Services at Treasury Wine Estates.

Treasury Wine Estates has a long track record of consistently turning ideas into action – the company is very far down the path of Commercial Teaching, and they’ve also done extensive work executing on our past Coaching research. The Treasury team took one of our most popular coaching best practices—Symetra Financial’s sales process-aligned coaching roadmap—and created their own version of it.

When accepting the award, Darren shared the six things that he believes help an organization accelerate insight to action: Read More »

At last week’s annual Sales and Marketing Summit, “Inside the Customer’s Purchase Decision,” the keynote address was delivered by Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of the well-known book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Dr. Cialdini’s work on persuasive techniques is always an interesting read for sales professionals, but what made his speech especially timely and relevant for the summit was that it was about persuasion during times of greater information overload and uncertainty.

Faced with more information than ever before, stricter budgets and approval processes, and greater internal consensus requirements, customers are increasingly uncertain about making purchases today.

According to Dr. Cialdini, people exhibit several possible responses when faced with decisional uncertainty:

• Freezing—a reluctance to act or make a choice until the uncertainty is resolved
• Loss Aversion—a tendency to prefer choices designed to prevent losses over choices designed to obtain gains
• Heuristic Choices—when choices are made, they are based on a single, relevant factor rather than a set of relevant factors

It’s no easy feat for sales forces to contend with customers exhibiting these behaviors. Reps can help customers overcome their decisional uncertainty and hesitancy though, by using some key principles of persuasion and influence. Read More »

Greetings from sunny Las Vegas. Despite the pull of the pool and the blackjack tables, I am currently sitting in the Grand Ballroom of the Bellagio hotel at the second annual Sales and Marketing Summit, hosted by the Sales and Marketing Practice of the Corporate Executive Board. More than 400 members are here with us to learn more about how to get “Inside the Customer’s Purchase Decision” – the theme of this year’s Summit. We have a full agenda packed with presentations based on the combined work by the SEC and our sister program, the Marketing Leadership Council.

The Global Director of CEB’s Sales and Marketing Practice, Haniel Lynn, opened the conference by talking about stressed out rats. No, that isn’t a typo – rats. Before I explain, let me provide some context.

One of the reasons more than 400 Sales and Marketing professionals are joining us in Las Vegas this week is because customers have been making their jobs pretty difficult over the past few years. Customers are buying differently, and not just differently, but smarter. This is putting a lot of stress on Sales professionals and Marketers who are trying to figure out what is going on and are feeling the pressure to change.

But as we all know, change isn’t easy, especially under pressure. Enter the rats. Read More »

Growing your largest accounts isn’t a simple, one-step task. Most organizations spend a great deal of effort agonizing over which customers should be considered key accounts in the first place—but this is only the first hurdle to get over.

Just because you’ve picked a customer to elevate to key account status, it doesn’t necessarily mean that customer has picked you. The customer might not want to engage in that level of partnership, or even understand why they were selected as a key account in the first place…which means you end up wasting valuable time and resources.

This doesn’t always have to be the case, though. Leading companies ensure that new key accounts:

1) Fully understand WHY they were selected as a key account

2) Know that they have access to your scarcest resources, and

3) Understand that they are expected to help you grow your business

And the way that you make sure a new key account knows and understands these three things?   Read More »

We’ve all observed at one point or another that the best sales reps don’t always make the best sales managers. Whether it’s a skill mismatch (being a star rep doesn’t mean you have the necessary people management skills) or an appeal thing (the rep simply doesn’t have interest in pursuing the manager track), what’s become clear is that organizations must start thinking about some non-traditional (aka non-managerial) career paths for senior sales reps.

This is easier said than done though. After all, you not only have to create a compelling career track but you must create one that makes the rep feel like they have (and are seen by others as having) a successful career path to take.

So, what can you do? Here are a few ideas…   Read More »