Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

I read the majority of the reports, studies, white papers, and books related to sales development because others in the field might stumble onto a trend, an insight or a statistic of which I was not aware. That’s why I downloaded Xactly’s 2025 Sales Compensation Survey.

Data 220

Data Hiring Compensation Quota 220

Sales and Marketing Management

OCTOBER 22, 2018

These efforts frequently end up with disappointing results, however, because most companies neglect the most powerful lever in their arsenal: their frontline, field-level sales managers who directly coach, influence and guide sales reps on a daily basis. In this study, top managers brought in an average $3.5

Sales Management 218

Sales Management Hiring Compensation Scale 218

Steven Rosen

MAY 15, 2021

They believe that strong sales managers are the key to driving sales rep performance. The STAR Sales Manager Survey set out to gauge the development priorities of sales organizations. The survey found that 50% of organizations are providing ongoing support for their front-line sales managers.

Survey 358

Survey Coaching Training Sales Talent 358

Steven Rosen

MAY 5, 2022

Sales Manager Coaching. Effective sales manager coaching is one of the key levers that leading sales organizations utilize to achieve their revenue targets. Sales manager coaching is the #1 sales management activity that impacts performance. Coaching improves sales rep engagement.

Coaching 177

Coaching Sales Management Sales Coaching Account 177

Steven Rosen

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

The Good News: Highly Effective Coaching drives 19% more sales! . The Bad News: Most sales managers are not effective coaches. The Ugly: How do you know if your sales managers highly effective coaches?? Senior sales management now has a snapshot on the coaching effectiveness of their entire sales management team.

Coaching 296

Coaching Survey Sales Management Meeting 296

Steven Rosen

DECEMBER 3, 2014

Early results are showing that sales leaders are most concerned about improving the performance management skills of their sales managers. 50% of sales leaders who have taken The 2015 Sales Management Survey have identified performance management as their #1 priority in 2015.

Survey 267

Survey Sales Management Report Sales 267

Sales and Marketing Management

OCTOBER 29, 2018

These efforts frequently end up with disappointing results, however, because most companies neglect the most powerful lever in their arsenal: their frontline, field-level sales managers. Frontline sales managers coach, influence and guide sales reps on a daily basis.

Sales Management 168

Sales Management Scale Compensation Study 168

Steven Rosen

MAY 5, 2022

Sales Manager Coaching. Effective sales manager coaching is one of the key levers that leading sales organizations utilize to achieve their revenue targets. Sales manager coaching is the #1 sales management activity that impacts performance. Coaching improves sales rep engagement.

Coaching 156

Coaching Sales Management Sales Coaching Account 156

Steven Rosen

DECEMBER 3, 2018

The results from Sales Mastery sales executive survey showed that 1/3 of executives surveyed, said that “ sub-optimal sales manager coaching” is one of their top 3 barriers to achieving their objectives in 2018. Coaching improves sales rep engagement. There is no silver bullet in sales.

Hiring 272

Hiring Coaching Survey Sales Coaching 272

Sales Hacker

MAY 5, 2020

With the business landscape changing overnight, sales departments and sales professionals are among the most affected. To better understand the impact of the pandemic on the sales industry, we sent out a 38-question survey to nearly 472 sales organizations in a wide variety of industries. What We Discovered.

Survey 120

Survey Top of Funnel Report Outbound 120

Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Here''s the premise: Companies that have been rigorously enforcing sales process should stop doing so because it is resulting in longer sales cycles, decreased conversion rates, unreliable forecasts and depressed margins. Their survey data is limited to 2,500 salespeople at 30 member companies. It was a survey!

Sales Process 251

Sales Process Margin Survey Forecasting 251

Sales 2.0

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

This is the first in a series of interviews with sales management subject matter experts, examining the current and future states of AI in sales. This first interview is with Oliver Churchill , the founder and CEO of Acuity Sales Decision Science. I was curious to hear what he thinks.

Sales Management 195

Sales Management Top of Funnel Data Intent Signal 195

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

Millennial Branding recently conducted a survey of 233 HR professionals from various industries. Development Dimensions International recently surveyed 1,987 HR professionals and 12,423 business leaders of various ages. Gen Y leaders surveyed placed a greater emphasis on personal development plans than other generational groups.

Sales Talent 300

Sales Talent Conversion Survey Salary 300

Steven Rosen

FEBRUARY 2, 2017

HBR quotes a survey where more than 400 global CEO’s found that business execution excellence was the number one challenge facing corporate leaders. In an informal survey of 12 Business Unit Directors where they were asked if they had a formal marketing plan in place, they laughed and said it was a given. Ownership of the Plan.

Face-to-face 326

Face-to-face Survey Sports Follow-up 326

Steven Rosen

JANUARY 22, 2018

Effective sales manager coaching is one of the key levers that leading sales organizations utilize to achieve their revenue targets. Sales manager coaching is the #1 sales management activity that impacts performance. Coaching improves sales rep engagement. What can you do? Do nothing.

Sales Coaching 273

Sales Coaching Coaching Sales Management Study 273

Hubspot Sales

MARCH 7, 2018

KPIs for Sales Managers. Sales Volume by Location. Sales managers -- and particularly field sales managers -- can often feel like they are trapped in a fog. The survey asks participants to rank the likelihood of a recommendation on a scale of 0-10. New Leads/Opportunities. Competitor Pricing.

Lead Rank 145

Lead Rank Lead Scoring Sales Management Scale 145

Steven Rosen

JANUARY 22, 2018

Effective sales manager coaching is one of the key levers that leading sales organizations utilize to achieve their revenue targets. Sales manager coaching is the #1 sales management activity that impacts performance. Coaching improves sales rep engagement. What can you do? Do nothing.

Sales Coaching 261

Sales Coaching Coaching Sales Management Study 261

Steven Rosen

APRIL 1, 2024

However, a surprising number of sales managers avoid these critical conversations, a trend that undermines team potential and poses a significant threat to organizational success. A Look at the Stats Recent surveys and studies have revealed an uncomfortable truth: many sales managers regularly sidestep difficult conversations.

Conversion 227

Conversion Construction Survey Compensation 227

Sales and Marketing Management

OCTOBER 26, 2020

And this dynamic has merely accelerated a long-term trend of B2B companies shifting their sales capacity from field-based to virtual models. Myth 1: Field sales reps sell primarily in person. Respondents reported that half of sales interactions already took place virtually, not in person, even before the pandemic.

Lead Rank 339

Lead Rank Quota Face-to-face Hiring 339

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 20, 2013

When you register, you’ll receive the complete Sales Organization Discovery Guide. Sales Rep Survey. Sales Management Survey. Sales Rep DILO (Day In The Life Of). Now we’ll look at three in more detail: Sales Rep DILO (Day In The Life Of). Executive Interviews. Customer Interviews.

Hiring 310

Hiring How To Face-to-face Survey 310

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

Stop kidding yourself when you say you involved the sales team. Asking a couple of sales reps does not constitute understanding the buyer. Having one sales manager on the implementation team is just checking the box. User buyer examples: Sales reps by vertical. Sales Managers (all levels).

Eloqua 316

Eloqua Marketo Buyer Persona Collateral 316

Sales Readiness Group

MARCH 31, 2021

Last week, I surveyed 53 sales managers, asking them, among other things, what essential skills their top-performing salespeople possess. Okay, it wasn’t an actual survey.

Sales Management 105

Sales Management Survey Trends Sales 105

Steven Rosen

AUGUST 22, 2016

Why New Sales Managers Fail. Are you a new sales manager , or have you just been promoted into a sales manager role? I am going to share the number one reason why new sales managers fail. Time and time again companies promote their best sales reps into managerial roles.

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Promotion Sports Territories 120

Topline Leadership

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Surveys have found that 82% of managers worldwide consider culture fit one of their top priorities when hiring people. That matches my own experiences, leading me to this question: do sales managers unknowingly discriminate when hiring reps for culture fit? ” appeared first on TopLine Leadership.

Hiring 113

Hiring Sales Management Survey Sales 113

Steven Rosen

MARCH 4, 2021

By moving greater decision-making into the regions and territories, the ability of sales managers and sales reps to make strategic business decisions becomes even more important. With fewer reps calling on physicians, the allocation of sales calls and marketing resources must be rationalized. The survey says….

Territories 194

Territories Survey Coaching Sales Management 194

No More Cold Calling

AUGUST 14, 2019

By chance, they were conducting a customer satisfaction survey with 50 of their best clients. The survey was several rounds. To this day, I have no idea where the question came from, but that survey was the genesis of my business. The survey had a seven-point scale, with seven being high. Was this company asking?

Referrals 291

Referrals Cold Calling Survey Scale 291

No More Cold Calling

MAY 27, 2014

A 2011 survey from InsideSales.com shows that, for inquiries submitted on the Web, 78 percent of deals went to the first companies that responded. Associations Enterprise Sales Management Salespeople Small Business' Buyers value speed, which means salespeople must always be prepared to move quickly when opportunities arise.

Buyer 277

Buyer Cold Calling Social Media Small Business 277

Steven Rosen

MARCH 30, 2017

Creating and maintaining a high level of engagement across the entire sales organization takes a concerted effort. It starts with the sales leader and extends to the front-line sales managers. They take regular customer satisfaction surveys to see how their team is performing. Executing on Critical Success Factors.

Lead Rank 294

Lead Rank Lead Scoring Leads Marketing Qualified Lead 294

The Pipeline

JULY 27, 2012

This very much brings into question the need for some sales people to have do everything for their clients, rather than letting those in their company tasked and usually more qualified and trained to do those things, usually doing better. If the answer is not much, than what is your worth or value to the organization.

Hiring 300

Hiring Commission Follow-up Survey 300

SBI Growth

MAY 22, 2013

A recent Hubspot survey found that 34% of the leads marketers generate come from inbound marketing sources. 5 Social Selling Tactics to Find Your Next Sales Job. Shift your focus to sales managers and HR. This is an Inbound Marketing strategy that works. Inbound Marketing is more effective than Outbound Marketing.

Social Selling 324

Social Selling Hiring Inbound Outbound 324

SBI Growth

JANUARY 11, 2013

How can you ensure a green, over-eager new rep doesn’t blow the sale? SBI recently surveyed and interviewed over 200 CEOs. We captured 36 metrics that CEOs believe “reveal the truth” about sales org performance. Five top CEOs named the Look-to-Book Ratio the Sales Metric of the Year. What’s the “Look-to-Book” Ratio?

Account 297

Account Closing Analysis Coaching 297

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Help the sales leader identify any reps that are at risk of leaving. This should actually be an ongoing task of the HR leader to have frequent discussions with Sales Directors and Sales Managers to keep pulse on which Reps may be at risk for leaving. Has any documented issues of “disconnect” with sales management.

Sales Talent 288

Sales Talent Hiring Lead Rank Lead Scoring 288

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 14, 2013

We find numerous obstacles Sales VPs and Sales Managers face. It wastes time and costs sales. Every year we compile research for our Sales & Marketing Research Review. Conducting over 5400 Sales Management surveys and interviewing 600+ executives gave us new insight.

Hiring 300

Hiring Face-to-face Lead Rank Lead Scoring 300

Hubspot Sales

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Luckily, some major companies, like LinkedIn, have discovered a way to improve sales relationships, customer trust, and — ultimately — sales numbers. Recently, HubSpot sat down with Kwesi Graves , Regional Sales Manager at LinkedIn, to learn more about how he centers his team's sales approach completely around the ideal buyer.

Buyer 140

Buyer LinkedIn Sales Management Sales Qualified Lead 140

SBI Growth

DECEMBER 4, 2012

Ultimately, Sales Managers are the crucial key to any kind of Sales force adoption. But to ensure the highest adoption, Sales must leverage HR. World-class HR is a center of excellence for Change Management. Sales Managers that are not onboard – can you spell failure? Use a survey.

Compensation 292

Compensation Channels Fashion Construction 292

The Pipeline

OCTOBER 3, 2019

A survey done by CEB found that individual stakeholders who perceived content to be tailored to their specific needs were 40% more willing to buy from that supplier than stakeholders who didn’t. Scott has over 20 years of Sales and Sales Management Experience. To that point, you need a relevant message.

Account 251

Account Account Based Marketing Ideal Customer Profile Exercises 251

Steven Rosen

AUGUST 11, 2017

In a survey of more than 400 global CEO’s, HBR found that executional excellence was the number one challenge facing corporate leaders. He has a proven track record of delivering stellar sales results. He is recognized as a Sales Leadership thought leader and is considered one of the Top 50 Sales Influencers 2015.

Strategy 197

Strategy Pharmaceuticals Face-to-face eBook 197