Book Description

Selling is getting more and more complex, yet few companies are implementing formal sales processes that would bring the degree of management control that is needed. Too many managers have no reliable way to measure the performance of sales people other than by orders produced and bulging 30-60-90 day forecasts with little or no backup. There is pressure to adopt sales automation, but there isn't much evidence of its improving sales effectiveness. The decision is not a simple one, successful implementation is even harder. If you want to improve your competitiveness you may need to change the behavior of your salespeople by focusing on the processes that run the business. You can’t change the behavior without changing the processes and inspecting that they are being followed. The book guides the reader to building an integrated system of sales and marketing management processes. But this itself will not bring the desired level of effectiveness. You must also manage the interaction among the management processes and in so doing seamlessly integrate the product marketing strategy, the sales and marketing tactics, and the sales and marketing management processes. This is neither a text book nor a book on sales management theory. It is a step-by-step, here’s-how-to-do-it, guide to achieving integrated sales process management. It evolved to its current state, not as an academic activity but from years of empirical evidence of what works and what doesn’t. In a global business environment where everyone is working hard to achieve a unique edge, understanding and improving your management processes faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage. This book introduces Integrated Sales Process Management to people who are, or aspire to be, marketing and sales executives and provides them with a direction to achieving the concepts in their own organizations. The central theme in the book is that if you want to solve sales effectiveness problems permanently, or prevent them from occurring, you must become more management process driven.