Slaying Sacred Cows Archives

Why the directive to “minimize costs” in your industrial sales business is foolish

The directive to “minimize costs” is foolish. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of system dynamics. Practically, you can only maximize (or minimize) a single parameter in a system. (Imagine advising a competitor in the Tour de France that he should simultaneously ride as fast as possible and minimize energy consumption. This advice would have… “Why the directive to “minimize costs” in your industrial sales business is foolish”

A breakthrough (?) approach to the management of dealers (and other reseller relationships)

When we work with those manufacturers that sell via resellers of various types, we often encounter an instance of the Drunkard’s Search problem within the sales department. This article describes the problem, as well as a solution we devised around 15 years ago—but abandoned because we believed it was too complex to be practical. Our… “A breakthrough (?) approach to the management of dealers (and other reseller relationships)”

The secret life of revenue within industrial organizations (and why salespeople don’t generate it)

I’m not joking. The following is precisely how most executives within industrial organizations conceptualize revenue. Q. Where does revenue come from? A. From salespeople. Q. How do salespeople generate revenue? A. Um. From relationships. This conception of revenue is not even vaguely correct. And, unfortunately, this fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of revenue leads to… “The secret life of revenue within industrial organizations (and why salespeople don’t generate it)”

The folly of the organization-wide, unified workflow

If your business is any more complex than a lemonade stand, it’s likely that you do not need (and should not have) a unified, organization-wide workflow. But what you should have are unified inboxes within each department.

Fuelling Growth: The abundance of leads in industrial sales

This article was first published on Thomasnet.com. You can read the original here. Your salespeople are NOT short of leads! If you hear a crazy idea often enough, there’s a danger that you’ll come to passively accept it — particularly if it’s on the periphery of your primary interest area. Some of these ideas (think, astrology)… “Fuelling Growth: The abundance of leads in industrial sales”

Revenue Should Always Be the Responsibility of Operations, Never Sales

This article was first published on Thomasnet.com. You can read the original here. If you make revenue the responsibility of your sales department, you will handicap the growth of your organization. If you want your organization to grow, operations should be responsible for revenue and your sales department should focus exclusively on new business. Before… “Revenue Should Always Be the Responsibility of Operations, Never Sales”

Why you DON’T want your remote team members to be busy

In order to be productive, we do NOT want members of a team to be busy, we want them to be responsive.

The blind watchmaker and why sales tasks should not be automated

Management should NOT attempt to impose a fixed sequence of tasks upon salespeople. An attempt to do so will decrease salespeople’s productivity and damage the integrity of information ultimately extracted from CRM.

Face-to-face visits: when the obvious conclusion is the wrong one!

Have you ever heard a salesperson boast that if they can just get face-to-face with a prospect, their odds of winning the deal jump to 50%? Of course, you have. Pretty much all salespeople make this claim! If we analyze this statement, we discover that it contains an observation that is (most likely) roughly correct.… “Face-to-face visits: when the obvious conclusion is the wrong one!”

Why you probably want fewer than 30% of your leads to be “inbound”

A number of Marketing folks would have you believe that inbound leads (or sales opportunities) are superior to outbound. (They generally are.) And that inbound (or content) marketing is virtuous and outbound is primitive and disreputable. (This position is pretty much as silly as it sounds!) I’ve pointed to problems with the definition of “inbound”… “Why you probably want fewer than 30% of your leads to be “inbound””

Category Archives: Slaying Sacred Cows