SPIF Tip #39: How Deming’s Foundational Principles Will Make Your Sales Funnel Flow Faster

  In the work-a-day world of hustling to find new customers, what good is a management philosophy used in manufacturing? If you’ve wondered about this, prepare to be surprised. Because your sales success today (and in the future) is strongly influenced by these simple, deceptively powerful ideas. Consider the state of most sales and marketing […]

SPIF Tip #38: Sales Management Development Podcast

I was interviewed by Todd Youngblood, who runs the Sales Management Development Podcast. He agrees with me that the vast majority of B2B companies could benefit immensely from applying lean and Six Sigma thinking to sales and marketing. We discussed why so few companies have begun this journey, and what it looks like when you […]

SPIF Tip #37: The Obstacle Even Great Salespeople Can’t Overcome

A fellow named Yves asked this great question: In all your SPIF tips I have read, you haven’t written about selecting the right people in sales. Perhaps this is the sales manager’s responsibility. Yet, plenty of sales managers should not have been promoted to their positions. How can sales work if the wrong people are […]

SPIF Tip #36: Unless You’ve Gone to the Gemba, You’re Probably Fixing the Wrong Sales Problem

I’ve often written about the sad state of affairs in sales and marketing productivity. It happens because companies have only anecdotes and no data on the causes of sales and marketing problems. But collecting and analyzing data is harder than it seems. The “information dashboards” and “control systems” guiding and controlling sales and marketing are […]

SPIF Tip #35: A Wake Up Call for Senior Management

Piyush Saggi is the co-founder and CEO of a promising startup in Atlanta called SalesTing. He interviewed a seasoned enterprise sales rep in a recent LinkedIn post “Confessions of an Enterprise Sales Rep.” Some of what the rep said was priceless: Piyush: What % of your leads come from Marketing? Rep: Tough to answer that. […]

SPIF Tip #34: What Sales and Marketing Can Learn From “The Martian”

I’m sure you’ve heard about “The Martian,” Ridley Scott’s thrilling movie about Mark Watney, an astronaut left behind on Mars when a mission to the red planet went horribly wrong.  about “The Martian,” Ridley Scott’s thrilling movie about Mark Watney, an astronaut left behind on Mars when a mission to the red planet went horribly […]

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SPIF Tip #33: Need to Improve Your Team’s Sales Productivity? This Simple, Logical Approach Works

When markets, technologies, or personnel change, sales departments that have run well for years can have a rough time. When too many deals go to “no decision,” and no one can predict which accounts will buy, the traditional “black-box” mentality of the sales department becomes a problem that needs solving. Of course salespeople do their […]

SPIF Tips #32: The Root of Improvement

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Bob Miller, former Executive Director of the Shingo Institute. I asked him how he helps companies change their culture in a manner that enables improvement to really stick. His answer was quite interesting:

SPIF Tip #31: Sales Problems Are Probably Not Caused By Your Sales VP

Through the grapevine I heard that the CEO at a company I’ll call “Blunder, Inc.,” wanted to fire his Sales VP. Why? He missed his sales forecast. Now this might not be politically correct, yet someone has to say it. Based on that information alone, the CEO should be fired, not the Sales VP. Senior […]