Like many companies experiencing hyper-growth, LinkedIn struggled to meet its sales teams’ reporting demands. Conventional business intelligence tools proved inadequate for team members, who were expected to make their own data-driven decisions. After recasting its analytics strategy, LinkedIn provided its decision makers with greatly improved visibility and insight, ultimately establishing its analytics...Read more

Using Sales Data and Analytics: Insights for Leadership 
22 August 2013
Register to read full article
Sales Performance Management (SPM) combines disparate information sources into essential intelligence for sales leaders. This webcast describes how sales organization can identify new profit sources and enable growth strategies through SPM. By integrating data from product, marketing, finance, and HR, SPM’s analytics yield insights previously unavailable to management. Examples include:...Read more
Communicating a formal offering to prospective customers represents a pivotal sales process stage. This research initiative examines current proposal management practices in business-to-business sales organizations. Research objectives include assessing what high-performing sales organizations do differently from others during the proposal stage of their sales process; and prioritizing potential investment strategies...Read more
This webcast presents key trends, emerging practices, and challenges in quota management. Topics include quota setting methodology, best practices for promoting quota accuracy and fairness, goal allocation approaches, and analytics to measure quota management effectiveness. Also presented are findings from Aon Hewitt’s recent study of quota management practices among business-to-business...Read more

Research Update: Sales Process Adoption and Usage 
14 August 2013
Register to read full article
Sales process is widely acknowledged as an important feature of a productive sales system, sales process discipline varies widely across firms. This research examines how large business-to-business sales forces are using defined sales processes, their impact on firm performance, and factors contributing to sales process adoption and effectiveness. Specific areas...Read more

Research Update: Enabling Sales Methodology through Technology 
9 August 2013
Register to read full article
Deploying a consistent selling approach is an important priority for many sales organizations. Technology represents a potentially valuable tool for communicating, reinforcing, and driving adoption of sales methodology. This Sales Management Association Research Initiative investigates how companies are using technology to enable effective sales methodology. Research results focus on: Identifying...Read more
Managing high performing sales forces begins with defining success. It also depends upon management’s ability to correctly diagnose performance issues, surface root causes, and introduce corrective measures. This webcast presents a framework for identifying, measuring, monitoring, and managing sales organization effectiveness. Presented by Marco Madero and Scott Barton from Aon Hewitt's...Read more

How Excellent Sales Competency Models Make Excellent Sales Forces (webcast) 
18 July 2013
Register to read full article
Sales teams today contend with increasingly sophisticated buyers and intense competition. They must engage with their customers in more sophisticated ways to create and prove their value. Salespeople need more than the traditional relationship-building and closing skills - business acumen, sharp analytics, effective cross-functional collaboration, and creativity are essential in...Read more