Rule #35 - Develop an Executive Whiteboard
The sales rep was in the customer's office for their first meeting. The rep had skillfully probed and qualified the account with questions that gathered quite a bit of data and useful information about the account situation and where problems and issues existed. The rep offered up a provocative statement about the state of the industry relative to new issues of compliance and security management control. Then he motioned to the whiteboard and asked, "May I use your whiteboard?' The customer nodded and then further engaged with the rep over the next 20 minutes as the rep used the whiteboard as a powerful platform to describe the customer's and marketplace challenges with a helpful framework for considering solutions. The meeting ended with the customer considering the rep of significant higher caliber than his predecessor and thinking to himself as he walked him to the door how helpful and enlightening this sales call had actually been.
Very few salespeople utilize the powerful tool of the Executive Whiteboard. The concept is simple. First, let's define what it is.... (book excerpt)

Michael Griego, MXL Partners' founder/president, sales consultant and trainer to Fortune 500 firms and leading Silicon Valley technology firms, has reduced the keys to sales effectiveness to 42 Rules in his forthcoming book 42 Rules to Increase Sales Effectiveness. This book, to be released in September 2009 by SuperStar Press, applies modern fundamentals to sales and sales management.

Gearing Up For the Fall Season
Throughout the first half of 2009 firms have been reacting and adjusting to changes in the marketplace and their own internal gyrations. Like professional sports teams working through half-time adjustments, off-season management changes, drafts and trading deadlines, the second half or new season is off and running.

Process clarity for complex sales and careful monitoring of Web metrics for simpler environments are key drivers. Recent CSO Insights research is proving that for competitive, complex sales environments (multiple levels of buying influences, multiple players, complex buying processes), "winging it" is a losing strategy. Even the most seasoned veterans can be thwarted by changing forces in the marketplace. For highly transactional sales environments (short sales cycles, limited buying influences, rapid or impulsive buying processes), leveraging online capabilities and lower cost teams with tight metric management is required more than ever.

The sales adjustment bandwagon is for everyone. Some firms need it more than others. Two-thirds (66%) of Random Process firms acknowledge they need to improve in adapting their processes to changing market conditions. 8% of optimized or Dynamic Process firms claim need for improvement.

Are you making your adjustments and gearing up for a big second half?

Better Coaching, Lower Turnover
In 2008 42% of sales managers were managing seven or more reps. This ratio of reps to managers has increased in 2009 as many underperforming managers have been removed. This issue is compounded as 40% of firms surveyed in the 2009 Sales Performance Optimization Report see the need to improve their sales managers' ability to proactively mentor/coach reps.

The firms that excelled at sales coaching have a 40% lower turnover rate of firms. Contact us to help you strike the effective balance between sales rep training and sales management coaching.

Leadership
"The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower