The tough economy seems to be causing more companies to poke around their sales departments with 5S or other lean-style experiments. We’ve received more inquiries on the topic, and some threads have popped up in lean and process-oriented bulletin boards.

Many of these inquiries come from in-house practitioners trained and experienced only in the production context. Applying lean in the sales department is difficult for such in-house practitioners. That’s because sales and marketing is an entirely different kind of value stream from normal production work.

Before embarking on a lean kaizen journey in your sales department, it helps a lot to know what you are getting into. (more…)

October 13th, 2009 Posted to Blog | Comments (1)

by Michael J. Webb

(pdf of this article)

One of the most common questions from executives trying to improve sales and marketing results is this:

“How can we get our salespeople’s cooperation in our new (blank) initiative?”

Whether you are trying to implement process improvement, CRM, a product launch, or a lead generation campaign, getting salespeople’s attention, support, and active cooperation is critical, yet is often painful and frustrating. Salespeople can often seem to be the most resistant, uncooperative group in the company.

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by Michael J. Webb

(pdf of this article)

What steps of your sales and marketing process produce the most cost, waste, and frustration? Here are five important mistakes you can work on to make your sales and marketing more productive. Fixing any of these five areas will produce big returns for your organization.

(more…)