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August 6, 2012
Execute Your Sales Strategy By Pinpointing Growth Opportunities
By: Daniel Korten
The Sales Leader is about to receive the 2013 Revenue Number. He will rely on you, the Head of Sales Operations, for sales strategy advice. Have you conducted growth opportunity analyses in your market? Are you confident the sales team’s people, money and time are accurately allocated for the upcoming year?
Find out if your sales resources are aligned with growth opportunity by using the Sales Growth Pin Pointer.
Over the last year, I have worked on multiple projects with different Sales Operations Leaders. The objective for each was to identify growth opportunity and align resources accordingly.
Prior to conducting any project I ask the Head of Sales Ops three important questions to gauge the thoroughness of their growth analyses.
Here is a typical conversation with Oliver (a fictional Sales Ops Leader):
As the Head of Sales Ops, are you thinking the same way? You need to know where growth lays for any sales strategy recommendations you make.
To effectively allocate people, money and time for growth opportunities, you must incorporate the following three analyses:
What are the ramifications for your company if you do not conduct this research?
If you value the above data points, then you know the impact of accurately allocating people, money and time to making the number in 2013. You either hit the number or you don’t. These items provide the framework for you to hit that number.
For context, one of the Sales Operations leaders I worked with noted that, for his suite of services, financial companies spend the most money. Rather than that general statement we were able to identify:
A recent article authored by a few McKinsey partners (“Use Big Data to Find New Micromarkets”) simply suggests that you “align sales coverage with opportunity.” High-level, general statements such as this will no longer be enough. Due diligence and granularity will prove the data points that lead to your sales strategy recommendation.
Our firm has researched over 1100 metrics and 5000+ documents to understand how organizations are allocating their people, money and time. Companies who accurately allocated sales resources consistently:
Is the above what you can expect for your 2013 goals? Ask yourself:
If you find it difficult to answer the above questions then use the Sales Growth Pin Pointer.
Is your sales strategy going to be aligned with growth opportunities in 2013?
Dan joined SBI in 2012 and has mastered many roles within the firm’s Consultant Team. Most recently he became Client Success Manager, where he oversees and ensures project quality, consultant team development and client satisfaction.
Dan is an expert problem solver, which he achieves through data-driven decision making. When advising clients, he incorporates market segmentation, account segmentation, revenue & budget planning, sales organizational strategy and sales operations strategy.
Dan has also deep experience solving multi-functional organizational alignment issues impacting revenue growth. Expertise in private equity due diligence & screening, product strategy, buyer segmentation, demand generation strategy, sales territory optimization and talent strategy round out his broad base of knowledge in problem solving.
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