by Frank Cespedes | Oct 15, 2014 | Aligning Strategy and Sales, Articles
Sales compensation is a perennial topic at most companies. There are many different ways to pay salespeople, and money is important. Business history is full of firms that got what they paid for (e.g., reps who, responding to their volume-driven incentives, failed to...
by Frank Cespedes | Oct 7, 2014 | Aligning Strategy and Sales, Articles
Sales leaders face a conundrum when selecting sales managers from the rep ranks. Most firms have examples of successful salespeople who are disasters as managers because they persist in the same behaviors as a manager that helped them excel as an individual...
by Frank Cespedes | Sep 25, 2014 | Aligning Strategy and Sales, Articles
Firms in the United States invest three times more in selling than advertising, 20 times more than online media and 100 times more than social media, according to research presented in a 2013 Harvard Business Journal article. In fact, the money spent on sales training...
by Frank Cespedes | Sep 19, 2014 | Aligning Strategy and Sales, Articles
For many years Document Security Management (a pseudonym) had a thriving business in retrieving and shredding or securely storing organizations’ documents. Executives and their assistants loved its one-stop-shopping value proposition, and the sales force cultivated...
by Frank Cespedes | Sep 19, 2014 | Aligning Strategy and Sales, Articles
When CEOs look to the VP of sales for a report on the latest results, volume and growth are the usual metrics discussed. But these two points don’t necessarily link sales with strategy. That requires better metrics, for a variety of reasons. Read the full article on...
by Frank Cespedes | Sep 9, 2014 | Aligning Strategy and Sales, Articles
You know they’re important. HR is on your case about getting them done. But, they’re time consuming, uncomfortable, and disorganized. And as a manager, you have more important things to focus on right now. We’re talking about the dreaded performance review. They’re...
