Building a Successful Sales Force
Book Details
Author(s)Mark Benfer
PublisherExecSense
ISBN / ASINB0098QNK2C
ISBN-13978B0098QNK23
Sales Rank2,096,750
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
Authored by Mark Benfer, formerly of General Electric.
When I was first approached to author a chapter for this eBook about sales, the topic of building a sales force was something I felt compelled to write about. It’s a topic too often ignored in traditional sales and sales management training and in books which tend to focus only on sales process and methodologies. Building and having a successful sales force is something almost every organization wants and identifies as a pivotal for their success.
Contributing to this book was motivated by a desire to help dispel the myth that great salespeople and sales forces are happy-go-lucky glad-handers, not the “brightest bunch†and less than trustworthy. Nothing could be further from the truth. That type of person is never part of a successful sales force. It takes much, much more. Great sales teams are made up of bright, positive, passionate people who value helping a customer and making a positive impact on them and their business.
Of course, writing on this topic is fraught with danger. The shear range of different buying and selling environments across industries and geographies and the significant differences between B2C and B2B sales makes it difficult to establish consistently helpful ideas. Most people want simple and singular answers, but those don’t exist.
The only way I know how to attack such a broad subject as “building a successful sales force†is to talk in terms of actionable foundation points. When you read these ten foundation points, many will say “of course, yes, we do that!†But my experience is that most organizations don’t really execute these points deeply and consistently, even if they are stated goals. Execution is usually the difference.
These are the ten ingredients that I feel are key (see appendix one). In crafting these, I am drawing on my experiences and what I’ve seen, being a sales executive for the last fifteen years and working with four different B2B sales organizations. These ideas are specific, they are actionable and they require minimal incremental resources to execute. Mastering them will deliver far more revenue than any investment required.
When I was first approached to author a chapter for this eBook about sales, the topic of building a sales force was something I felt compelled to write about. It’s a topic too often ignored in traditional sales and sales management training and in books which tend to focus only on sales process and methodologies. Building and having a successful sales force is something almost every organization wants and identifies as a pivotal for their success.
Contributing to this book was motivated by a desire to help dispel the myth that great salespeople and sales forces are happy-go-lucky glad-handers, not the “brightest bunch†and less than trustworthy. Nothing could be further from the truth. That type of person is never part of a successful sales force. It takes much, much more. Great sales teams are made up of bright, positive, passionate people who value helping a customer and making a positive impact on them and their business.
Of course, writing on this topic is fraught with danger. The shear range of different buying and selling environments across industries and geographies and the significant differences between B2C and B2B sales makes it difficult to establish consistently helpful ideas. Most people want simple and singular answers, but those don’t exist.
The only way I know how to attack such a broad subject as “building a successful sales force†is to talk in terms of actionable foundation points. When you read these ten foundation points, many will say “of course, yes, we do that!†But my experience is that most organizations don’t really execute these points deeply and consistently, even if they are stated goals. Execution is usually the difference.
These are the ten ingredients that I feel are key (see appendix one). In crafting these, I am drawing on my experiences and what I’ve seen, being a sales executive for the last fifteen years and working with four different B2B sales organizations. These ideas are specific, they are actionable and they require minimal incremental resources to execute. Mastering them will deliver far more revenue than any investment required.
