Sales Force Effectiveness

General Sessions

Monday, October 15, 2007 11:55 a.m. – 12:40 p.m.

Strategic Investments That Work - Improving Sales Productivity and Results

Ted Briggs, National Thought Leader-Sales Effectiveness & Compensation, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Joseph Clarkson, Central Division Practice Leader-Sales Effectiveness & Compensation, Watson Wyatt Worldwide

Sales and marketing organizations in today's companies are under constant pressure to perform and to achieve. Striving to meet objectives, gap analysis is a constant process and leaders are frequently pursuing initiatives to improve performance: process development, training, automation, reporting, and job competencies—even sales compensation plan redesign. These initiatives are expensive in time and money, not to mention distracting to current job needs. In this general session, Mr. Briggs and Mr. Clarkson highlight findings from Watson Wyatt's recent survey on strategic sales initiatives and their impact. Always entertaining, the duo's presentation will feature post-mortem recaps of projects both successful and unsuccessful, along with advice on dos and don'ts when it comes to creating true impact on future business results.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 8:15-9:00 a.m.

Injecting Science into the Art of Selling: Essential Elements of Sales Process Adoption

Bill Golder, Executive Vice President-Sales and Sales Operations, Miller Heiman

Standards and process permeate nearly every functional area in business, from accounting, finance, and operations to IT, human resources, and even marketing. Despite the tremendous benefits that standards and process can deliver, sales organizations have been much slower to move down this path. Miller Heiman research shows that top-performing sales organizations take a much more scientific approach to selling and sales management than others. While there will always be a certain art to selling, top-performers prove that sales process excellence creates a significant competitive advantage. Join Mr. Golder as he discusses measurable benefits for sales managers, account teams, and top executives, gives recommendations for securing commitments to build a foundation for a major process change, reveals the four elements of sales process adoption, and exposes critical factors for successful sales process adoption.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007 8:30-9:15 a.m.

The Sales Model of the Future

Lee Levitt, Director-Sales Executive Practice, IDC

Leveraging extensive corporate IT buyer and best practice research, Mr. Levitt will explore current sales engagement models, specifically focusing on the disconnects between buyers’ evaluation and purchasing processes and vendors’ sales practices, and examining both the significant costs and lost opportunities that result. He will present IDC’s "Sales Model of the Future," providing a detailed analysis of the changes in organization and processes that provide better alignment between buyer and seller, delivering increased purchases, higher sales productivity, greater customer satisfaction, and ultimately more innovation between buyers and sellers. Attendees will come away with an action plan that they can undertake immediately to begin the implementation of this sales model of the future.

Breakouts

Monday, October 15, 2007 1:45-2:45 p.m.

Merger Integration: Picking Up Where Due Diligence Left Off

Scott Barton, Senior Consultant-Sales Effectiveness & Compensation, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Clinton Gott, Senior Consultant-Sales Effectiveness & Compensation, Watson Wyatt Worldwide

For anyone having lived through an integration of two organizations, M&A can be a bitter pill. Through the process of integration, companies too often alienate solid performers from both organizations, making projections for growth and cost savings less likely. This session will examine two case studies of merged sales organizations. In one case, the acquiring organization determined that part of its strategy was to preserve the culture of the acquired group. In the other case, the acquired organization would adopt the management programs of the acquiring firm. Both cases provide lessons for sales management and those responsible for designing and managing the programs that motivate sales and customer-service personnel. Attend this session to learn:

elements of analysis necessary for determining synergies, risks, and priorities
how to fast track performance management, goal setting, base salary, and incentive plan integration
characteristics of success for preserving local cultures while gaining economies through centralized management practices

Monday, October 15, 2007 2:55-3:55 p.m.

Best Practices from the Fortune 1000: How Leading Companies Build a Strong Partnership between HR and Sales

Cindy Lyness, HR Director-Marketing & Sales, Cement Operations, Lafarge North America
Steve Grossman, Principal, Mercer Human Resource Consulting
Jason Jordan, Principal, Mercer Human Resource Consulting

Leading companies know the advantages of a strategic HR-Sales partnership. It allows Sales to focus on winning and retaining customers, and HR to create measurable value. Backed by research within Fortune 1000 companies, Ms. Lyness, Mr. Grossman, and Mr. Jordan will demonstrate how both sides can strengthen this important partnership. During this session, attendees will:

learn the key barriers to forming a strong partnership between HR and Sales by examining results of a Mercer study of 50 sales executives and 50 HR executives at Fortune 1000 companies
find out what successful companies do differently from other companies to overcome these barriers
consider the steps needed for HR executives to build lasting strategic relationships with Sales

Monday, October 15, 2007 4:05-5:05 p.m.

Achieving Year-Over-Year Sales Growth

Mike Spellecy, Vice President & Managing Consultant-Sales Effectiveness Practice, Maritz Inc.
Stan Striker, Vice President & Executive Director-Healthcare Sector, Maritz Inc.

Attend this session and learn how to implement an integrated approach to sales force performance improvement. All elements of this systemic approach are focused on supporting the deployment of critical skills needed for sales teams to perform at a high level to find, win, and grow customers. Attendees will:

understand how to unlock the hidden potential inside your sales force and accelerate sales growth through improved sales performance, illustrated with real world examples
learn how to help your sales force achieve new levels of success by aligning the business strategy - and the sales force - with the needs of the customer and enabling the sales force through needs-based training and resources (skills, coaching, and communities)
hear how to more effectively motivate the sales force by understanding individual preferences and rewarding and recognizing accordingly

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Sales Force Effectiveness in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Shawn Fatholahi, Vice President-Sales & Marketing, Impax Pharmaceuticals
Partha Anbil, Senior Principal-Management Consulting, IMS Health
John Moran, Director-Strategy Planning & Management Consulting, IMS Health

Innovative techniques for helping reps more effectively understand their customers’ key interests and preferences for information are driving value for leading pharmaceutical sales organizations. In this session, practitioners will highlight leading practices in equipping sales reps with valuable customer information that improves interactions and deepens customer relationships. New metrics of performance based on physician customization will also be discussed. This session is ideal for both pharmaceutical sales leaders as well as leaders of other highly distributed, large scale B2B sales forces who want greater one-to-one sales and marketing capability. By attending this session, participants will:

gain insight into how the pharmaceutical sales model is changing to become more customer centric
understand key selling tools that are enabling deeper, more productive customer relationships
hear from practitioners who are implementing leading practices for improving sales rep-customer interactions

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Successful New Hire Integration: Increase Productivity and Decrease Turnover

Kendra Lee, President, KLA Group

Half of all new hire sales reps quit or are fired within their first six months--costing the companies that hire them not only hiring and training expenses, but lost revenue in idle territories. It doesn’t have to be this way. Preventing revolving door syndrome requires the strategic implementation of effective on-boarding training principles that leave new sales reps with a "I made the right decision" feeling and the desire to quickly meet their quota objectives. During this session, attendees will learn:

ways to speed new hire sales reps’ time to productivity from day one
important training steps to improve employee retention beyond the first 90 days
indicators of potential failure and how to handle them

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 4:00-5:00 p.m.

When You Absolutely, Positively Have to Pay for Performance Against Quota: Quota
Setting as Change Management

Scott Sands, Southeast Region Sales Effectiveness & Compensation Practice Leader, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Tom Tice, Senior Consultant-Sales Effectiveness & Compensation, Watson Wyatt Worldwide

First line sales managers are used to "doing their own thing" when it comes to setting goals for their sales people. They tend to resist new compensation plans and any reduction of their autonomy in goal setting—particularly when moving a commissioned sales force to pay-for-improved-performance. This session will describe a process for managing the transition from a decentralized compensation and goal-setting process to a more centralized set of processes, concentrating on what can be done after the quota-bonus plan is designed to make sure that the quotas on which the compensation payouts are based will be accepted as fair by the sales force. Learn:

the four basic types of quota-setting processes and how they differ
techniques for gaining the acceptance of sales managers for process equity
the methods that are used when no quantitative estimates of territory market potential are available

Workshops

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 9:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Sales Coaching: Theory, Tools, and Practical Exercises

Rob Barham, Head of Sales, Imparta

This workshop will outline and demonstrate a number of key tools, processes, and approaches that lead to high impact coaching—with measurable results. Participants will learn the reasons for implementing high-performance coaching and dispel a number of common myths. They will also be given a number of vital tools and techniques required to support and implement a powerful and holistic approach to sales coaching, including competency models, observation sheets, coaching methodologies, and performance tracking tools. This extended workshop format provides participants with a lengthy opportunity to put these tools, theories, and skills into practice by reviewing and critiquing a sample of sales video clips. We will then calibrate everyone’s results and give feedback to the group. Once we have reviewed all results, there will be time to ask more questions, reflect on the content and plan how participants can move forward with any of the ideas and/or tools put into practice during the session.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Strategy Mapping: Learn to Universally Define Your Sales Compensation Strategy

Venkat Narayanan, Manager-Incentive Compensation Excellence Program, Cisco Systems Inc.
William Malek, Strategy Execution Officer, Strategy2Reality LLC

Do you need a new way to define your sales compensation strategy so that everyone, from the top down, has the same understanding? This workshop gives an introduction to some cutting edge techniques to define and articulate business strategy. Developed by Dr. Sayan Chatterjee of Case Western Reserve University and taught at Stanford University’s Center for Professional Development courses, a Strategy Map is a simple but powerful analytical tool. Learn how to align departmental strategies with organization strategies using a hands on and interactive approach. Attendees will get a chance to build a simple Strategy Map to get a feel for the process, while enhancing their learning by sharing assumptions and thought process with the other participants. Attendees at this session will:

learn the various elements that make up a strategy map and how to define these elements in order to completely articulate the ’strategy’ of an organization
understand how the elements are linked to each other to develop a complete, cohesive and consistent strategy
understand how to convert the strategy into a plan that can be executed and how to identify the capabilities and resources needed to execute the strategy

Roundtables

Monday, October 15, 2007 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 A.m.

Sales Operations: An Emerging Function

David Fritz, President, Growth Solutions, LLC

This roundtable is an opportunity for sales operations leaders to contribute to a peer discussion of the role and scope of sales operations, approaches to structuring and deploying sales operations departments, and the metrics associated with effective and efficient sales operations departments. Mr. Fritz will facilitate discussion points using results from a recent sales operations benchmark survey conducted by Growth Solutions.

Sales Performance Measurement »
Sales Compensation »