Michael Webb
Michael Webb
Is Process Improvement Primarily About Doing Improvement Projects?
A reader asked: I’ve been asked to organize a variety of process improvements proposed by our sales and marketing organizations. How do I select the right projects that will get the best results? There are lots of checklists available to remind you to do things like make sure the problem is important to the […]
Qualification Criteria
Qualification criteria are the observable characteristics of your sales opportunities that make them more or less likely to buy from you. Sales teams benefit greatly when they work out qualification criteria in great detail. Ideally this means they are put in the form of questions salespeople can score on a five-point Likert scale. This scale […]
Units of Production
Production is work that creates something of value. Farming produces crops. Manufacturing produces products. Sales produce customers. Production requires input, a process, and output. It creates value in stages, and these stages need to be operationally defined and measured if the goal is to maximize output and minimize input. In manufacturing, the most rudimentary classification […]
Operational Definitions
Operational definitions are a foundational principle in process excellence. They are a means of using language precisely to ensure a group of people can connect the meaning of a term to observable reality. If a measurement is generated, the operational definition specifies the procedure for doing so. Operational definitions are crucial in all scientific and […]
How to Get Full Support from Top Management in Going Lean and Six Sigma With Sales And Marketing?
A reader recently asked…. How to get full support from top management in going Lean and Six Sigma with sales and marketing? What is the most difficult part of the change or where is expected to be the most resistant to the change? This is a great question – and a complex one. Since you […]
How Many Sales Process Steps Do You Need to Analyze Data Effectively?
Gary Barnes posted the above question on the Linked-In Group “Sales Science”. He added, There seems to be an age old struggle between operations and sales on how discriminating a sales process should be. The more sales steps the more insight operations and sales leadership can gather on the current pipeline, but the more steps […]
Operational Definitions of Sales Qualification Criteria
One of the most valuable characteristics of process excellence is the distinction between what people can control and what they cannot. No improvement is possible without this information. The good news is that the effort spent identifying these factors helps salespeople become more effective and to elevates the performance of the team.
Are There Aspects of Lean Process Excellence That Can Be Quickly Implemented in 90-120 days?
I have received this question before, so I’m guessing my previous response wasn’t enough. Here is a quicker, shorter, take. I’d really appreciate knowing if this is helpful and what other questions come to mind: There are two ways lean process excellence makes an impact in a short time. The first way is to improve your […]
How Do You Determine the Appropriate Metrics to Measure Against in Such an Unstructured Environment as B2B Sales?
The key is in your point that B2B sales is an “unstructured environment.” I would argue that it is actually more structured and straightforward than people realize, and that it is our way of understanding it – the words and thinking frames we use – that need improving. Consider: When you apply lean and process […]
Five Assumptions that Prevent B2B Sales and Marketing Improvement – And How Process Excellence Avoids Them
by Michael Webb Improving sales and marketing productivity can be maddeningly difficult. There are so many different points of view – so many competing theories and motives. And, how do you even measure it? Most executives struggle to improve sales and marketing, because of some pesky things called assumptions. Unfortunately, if you start with the […]
