If you have seven minutes to spare, I encourage you to watch “The Expert.” It’s absolutely worth your time. A customer and her design specialist have a meeting with a service provider, represented by a salesperson, a project manager and an expert. The customer has budget for a new marketing project on market penetration, brand… Read More
About Tamara Schenk
21st Century Sales Warrior – Collaboration
What does customer-centricity mean for a sales organization in a complex sales environment? The tech industry has implemented different Go-To-Market models over the last decades, different sales strategies and methods. Very often, the design points along the vendor’s value communication chain didn’t really change, they often remained inside-out, still based on last century’s GoToMarket design… Read More
All About Sales Warriors – Fighting For Customer Outcomes
Warrior, sales warriors, especially the 21th century sales warrior – this term is mentioned almost everywhere. Not only since this SAP campaign was so well received. How do you feel being confronted with the term “sales warrior”? Do you perceive “sales warrior” as a positive term or as a provocative or negative term, or something… Read More
Bridging the Gap between Buyer Preferences and Seller Behaviors: Customer Engagement
Modern buyers are changing faster and to a greater degree than sales organizations. Buyers are also consumers, and their experiences as consumers influence their B2B buying behavior. They’ve rapidly come to expect personalization, transparency and immediate fulfillment. They take their B2C shopping experiences, consciously or unconsciously, with them when they go to work, and their… Read More
Building A Case for Frontline Sales Manager Development
If I were to play a note on an instrument, you wouldn’t immediately classify it as music. Even several notes, played at random, would still just be noise. It’s only when notes are assembled into a specific arrangement that they can properly be called music. In the hands of a master composer, these assembled notes… Read More
Building A Case For Investing In Sales Managers First
“The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.” ― Steven Pressfield Investments in sales productivity are often a significant budget item, and sales leaders need to tailor these investments to achieve their business goals. As the… Read More
Buying Iterations And What It Means For Sales Force Enablement
Do you remember the last time you made a significant buying decision as a consumer, such as a decision to buy furniture or a car? How structured and organized was this decision-making process? Or was it perhaps a more iterative process or cycle, because you heard something here and learned something there, and all of… Read More
Conscious Collaboration—A Behavior Of World Class Sales Performers
Look at a couple of your won deals and analyze the criteria that made the difference. There will be tangible criteria such as the vision of future success, the compelling business case, a specific solution whose value outweighed the perceived risk of change, etc. There is one intangible criterion that empowers all the tangible criteria,… Read More
Content in the Customer’s Context Drives Client Relationships
All life on Earth evolved from water. Water is the key prerequisite for life. We humans consist of eighty percent water. What water means for all of us, that’s what content could mean for the 21st century’s buyers. An adventurous hypothesis? Maybe. Let’s see what story our latest research will tell us. How effective is… Read More
Context Matters
“My Blackberry Is Not Working!” is one of the most brilliant sketches, especially when it comes to context. Imagine a fruit and vegetable shop. A customer comes in the shop, starts complaining that his BlackBerry wouldn’t work. Then, he puts a piece of fruit on the table. … You get the picture. In this case… Read More
CSO Insights 2016 Sales Best Practices Study: What World-Class Performers Do Differently
What is world-class? In sports it is easy to define. World champions and Olympic medalists are world-class. But what is world-class in sales? Revenue performance? Maybe, but how do you get there? What are the behaviors that drive world-class sales performance? At CSO Insights, we are passionate about all things sales performance. We research sales… Read More
Defining Sales Functions And Programs – Why You Need Vision, Mission, Purpose First
Defining sales functions and programs effectively requires a structured approach. But definitions create value only if they are adjusted to your organization’s specific context. Developing a big picture on vision, mission, purpose and core values is the first step in creating a meaningful charter for each of your sales support functions, such as sales enablement… Read More
Defining Sales Functions And Programs – How to Define Your Charter
Now, as we have defined vision mission and purpose, we have to be more specific. Based on your target audience (sales roles, sales manager roles, channel partners, etc.) motto, objectives, strategies and tactics, your specific services and your metrics have to be defined. For you as a sales leader make sure your sales functions complete… Read More
Enablement begins with a clear definition, in context
Imagine you are tasked with cooking a meal using ingredients that were given to you. But you don’t know your guests’ preferences and expectations. You don’t even know whether you’re cooking for a group of world-class tennis players, for a group of marathon runners, for a yoga class, or for a group that consists of… Read More
Enablement Technology: Goals, Benefits, and a Critical Dependency
Why do you invest in technology? To drive efficiency? Or is your goal to increase sales effectiveness as well? Often, we simply want technology to help us do things faster by automating steps that we’ve been doing manually. But ultimately, investments in sales technology should also achieve better business results. So it is with investing… Read More
Enabling Principles To Develop Salespeople’s Adaptive Skills
Let me start by defining a couple of terms that I’ll be using throughout this article. Principals provide guidance that are based on an organization’s core values how to deal with different customer situations. Principles require interpretation and adaption to the specific situation. Instead, rules are clearly defined statements with almost no space for interpretation…. Read More
Frontline Sales Managers Need Enablement
Michael Jordan is one of the most brilliant basketball players ever. His discipline to become world class, to achieve the brilliance that inspired millions of people, is well known. But he wasn’t nearly that successful as a coach. It’s the same in sales organizations. It’s not necessarily the best salesperson who makes the best manager… Read More
Getting More Women in Sales: Do We Have a Language Barrier?
A few years ago, when I had a sales enablement leadership role, I was asked to provide feedback on the draft of the speech our sales leader wanted to make to the sales force during a sales kick-off meeting. The only concern I had was the language: sales professionals were generally addressed with “salesmen” and… Read More
Give The Gift Of Data And Get Research In Return – The 2015 MHI Sales Best Practices Study
Sharing is the first step of collaboration, receiving is a natural follow-up. Collaboration leads to receiving more than the sum of the given pieces. Across industries, peer-to-peer networks, communities and the sharing economy are based on this collaborative principle – you have to give to get. For us at the MHI Research Institute, giving begins… Read More
Giving Opens The Way For Receiving – MHI Sales Best Practices Study
Sharing is the first step of collaboration, receiving is a natural follow-up. Collaboration leads to receiving more than the sum of the given pieces. Across industries, peer-to-peer networks, communities and the sharing economy are based on this collaborative principle – you have to give to get. For us at the MHI Research Institute, giving begins… Read More
How do you measure the effectiveness of your content… or don’t you do it at all?
In a time when we can measure almost everything, I cannot resist beginning this article with a famous quote by Albert Einstein: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.” Or was it William Bruce Cameron who initially said it? Either way, it’s spot on more than ever,… Read More
How To Avoid Seller and Buyer Misalignment
A few weeks ago, I signed up for a video conferencing service. The reason was simple: I was invited to a video meeting based on this service, so I needed an account. I signed up for a two-week free trial, the only option I had. I loved the service; the setup was easy, and the… Read More
How to Design A Sales Coaching Framework
Imagine salespeople have to learn a new skill, for instance, how to apply newly developed value messages in different customer interactions. In this case of behavioral change, a training session can only be the beginning of a longer journey. Lasting behavior change requires ongoing reinforcement. And this where coaching comes into play. And frontline sales… Read More
How To Drive Cross-Functional Collaboration With Councils – Part 1: Content Council
Whoever owns sales enablement in your organization, it’s always a cross-functional discipline. The need to collaborate to achieve better results is increasing, especially in a complex environment. What’s the main collaboration issue? Based on a sales enablement framework with the customer’s journey at the core, the main collaboration issues are all enablement services from design… Read More