Where to Spend Your Next Marginal Dollar

This is the third in a series of posts introducing SEC’s exciting new research topic for 2013: Driving Effective Sales Transformation . Read the previous post here .

Currently, 74% of sales organizations are in the process of fundamentally changing their selling approach. In a poll conducted during the SMAC Summit Conference in October, when asked to describe their sales culture in one word, 25% of Heads of Sales characterized their organization as “evolving”.

In order to implement lasting, organization-wide change, Heads of Sales are relying upon and focusing primarily on skill building efforts, such as training and coaching. In a survey of 119 members, 57% of organizations were investing their greatest marginal spend and attention upon skill building efforts and reward packages. Organizations believe that they can incentivize reps to apply the new selling approach and attract new talent through increased compensation packages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Furthermore, many Heads of Sales are investing spend on training and process-related improvements to improve sales enablement, such as CRM integration and methodology improvement. Only 5% of organizations are focusing efforts beyond the sales process and training to enable reps to sell in the new way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, Heads of Sales who are focusing solely on skill building and compensation will fail to embed the new selling approach within their organization and to attract new talent. In order to make the transformation, organizations must increase rep commitment to the new selling approach. By adjusting and realigning elements of their culture to support the new selling expectations, sales organizations can enable a rep to sell in the new way. Therefore, while organizations must teach reps the necessary new skills and align their sales process to meet the new demands, they must also invest attention and spend on creating a sales culture that will enable reps to insight sell.

SEC Members, read more about our 2013 research study and learn more about SEC’s hypotheses on the drivers of an enabling sales culture. Also, participate in the new SEC Sales Transformation Survey to evaluate key drivers and barriers of sales force engagement within your organization’s current sales culture.