We live in a world of growing sales complexity. Organizational structures that were once well equipped to meet business and customer needs now face the challenging task of coordinating multiple goals, decisions, and resources across geographies.

Sales executives, in response, often reorganize and make principled trade-offs between the benefits achieved by centralized and decentralized arrangements. However, each of these structural models fall short as companies are increasingly required to operate in a truly global environment, yet at the same time maintain their regional responsiveness.

While various organizational models have emerged to meet these structural challenges, the most common among these is the matrix organization, in which some form of lateral authority overlies the traditional vertical hierarchy. Sales employees are subject to dual influences, requiring coordination across functional boundaries. Read More »

In the military, soldiers are taught to follow the principle of Commander’s Intent:

“To preserve the initiative, subordinates must act independently within the context of an overall plan. They must exploit successes boldly and take advantage of unforeseen opportunities. They must deviate from the expected courses of action without hesitation when opportunities arise to expedite the overall mission of the higher force. They will take risks, and the command must support them.” ¹

Commander’s Intent is a clear, concise statement of the specific goal a commander is looking to achieve. Something like: “Capture and hold that hill until reinforcements arrive.”

That said, no step-by-step instructions are given on how to capture and hold the hill because they’ve learned that once soldiers engage in battle, they quickly have to adapt to the situation on the ground in unanticipated ways. The squad therefore is required to develop their own plans, often in-the-moment, translating thought to action, while maintaining the overall intention of the commander.

The Sales world is no different. Read More »

A few months back, I posted some early findings from our
benchmarking research on sales organizational structures. Since then, we have gone on to profile the sales structures of 30 member companies.

Here’s a quick round up of some of the additional sales org structure trends we’re observing:

Trend #1: Flatter Sales Organizational Structures:
Partly a result of the economic downturn, sales organizations have significantly cut down their organizational hierarchy and are looking to maintain their lean structure as the new normal. The emphasis is on increasing front line accountability and driving efficient decision making, while at the same time, providing senior leaders with visibility into field operations. Read More »

In the Sales world, the start of a new year often brings with it a fervent roll out of new compensation plans. It’s the one activity that garners the most interest from all quarters of the sales force. After all, a good compensation plan can drive the right behaviors, and retain and attract top talent.

The compensation plan design process itself is anything but simple though. Its scope overlaps with the domain of multiple functions—Sales Ops, HR, Finance, and Legal being the most vocal participants and stakeholders. Each, with often competing interests, claims ownership of sales compensation design. It’s no wonder we see compensation plans often stray away from the broader business goals of the organization.

Who then is best suited to own sales compensation? Read More »

Most companies have a well-defined, 3–5 year succession plan for their CEOs. The same is true for other leadership positions, including those within the sales organization. After all, a strong leadership succession plan ensures a steady pipeline of experienced and capable talent as key roles become available.

But, what about sales talent at the front line? Should companies prepare reps for the first line sales manager role? The answer most sales organizations are beginning to realize is a firm YES..!!

First line manager backfills are still based on strong performance in the rep role, but the requisite skills are different from those required of managers. In addition, the first line manager profile itself is simultaneously changing with the product-to-solutions transition and shifting of customer purchase preferences. This “double jump” represents a vexing challenge for “once-high-performing-rep” managers.

It’s not surprising then that star reps don’t always make star managers. Below is an analysis from a Fortune 500 company that attempts to estimate the cost of a failed first line sales manager: Read More »

When The Home Depot decided to audit the number of messages received by the average store manager in a 30-day period from multiple functions across the firm, here’s what they found:

Time Required for Managers to Process Company Communications

Company messages received:               3,000 per month per manager
Average time to process:                      1 minute per message
Total time required to process:              3,000 minutes per month per manager

That’s about one week per month in responding to internal messages!

Home Depot’s managers are not alone. We all are constantly bombarded with messages at work from internal stakeholders. The problem is more acute in Sales though, where reps struggle to keep up with the barrage of e-mails, voicemails, and now social media while in the field. In the absence of an established communications policy, reps use their own discretion to determine message urgency and importance, resulting in them either spending time away from value-creating activities or ignoring business-critical messages.

In our discussions with member companies, we’ve uncovered four key tactics to reduce the volume of communications to the sales force, while still ensuring the flow of critical information: Read More »

Anyone who’s ever rewired their home knows what an arduous task it can be. Especially, if your home was built for a different decade—every outlet must be removed and receptacle replaced.

Sales leaders face a similar dilemma today. Many realize their sales organizational structure is out-of-date and needs to be modified (or in some cases completely overhauled) to better meet customers’ needs, drive continued internal efficiencies, and stay competitive in the market.

In response to this growing trend, the SEC is in the process of benchmarking sales organizational structures of companies across industries and geographies. Below are some of our initial observations from the research:   Read More »

During Q3 of every year, sales leaders spend a large amount of time on strategic planning to establish Sales’ mandate for the next year and focus reps on high-value activities that align with corporate objectives. This is typically followed with a company-wide meeting where the sales plan is unveiled.

Oftentimes though, the frontline fails to execute on these sales plans.

Without a clear sense of how top line goals link to sales activities, reps either resort to doing what they’ve always done or acting on their own interpretations of the strategic plan. In fact, reps typically view the plan as another check-the-box activity that has little utility in the day-to-day functioning of the sales organization.

So then, how do progressive companies get buy-in for and drive action on their sales plan?

In our conversations with members, we’ve uncovered three best practices that help organizations get the strategic planning process right: Read More »

Organizations have perpetually struggled to drive collaboration and knowledge-sharing across their different functions, business units, and geographies. In recent years, many have looked to social media as a potential solution, but hesitated given privacy concerns and protection of proprietary information.

That all changed with the launch of Salesforce Chatter, a platform which promises to bring the benefits of social media to sales organizations.

For those unfamiliar with the platform, Salesforce Chatter is like Facebook, but for organizations. It allows employees to collaborate at work—establish networks, share files and status updates, follow people, information, and groups—all within the company’s private and secure internal network.

In our conversations with members, we’re often asked how organizations are leveraging Salesforce Chatter to drive better collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Here are five tips that can help you unlock the platform’s value: Read More »

When it comes to embracing new technology, sales reps often are the last to get on board. Attempts to introduce new technology often fail, as reps go back to their tried and tested ways of selling.

It’s no wonder, then, that reps’ recent interest in using iPads has caught most sales organizations by surprise. In fact, many companies are reporting that reps are proactively purchasing personal iPads to use in the field. Encouraged by the positive feedback from early adopters, a number of companies are in various stages of launching more pilots and arming their broader sales force with iPads, and some are even creating dedicated applications.

But, what makes the iPad such a powerful sales tool and why are reps so drawn to it?

3 Things Reps Love About iPads: Read More »