With the Coronavirus having brought business as usual to a halt, we have had a number of conversations with revenue leaders across the Sales Leadership Communities that we support. Four topics that have been recurring themes are:
As the quarter comes to a close, it creates a time when many sales leaders are taking inventory. Taking inventory of where they have been and where they are going. For sales leaders, this inventory often takes the form of a 2 question survey:
- Did I make my number last year?
- Am I going to make my number this year?
One of the best aspects of a revenue generating role is that feedback is very clear. Either the company is making plan or not. Your team is making plan or not. You are making plan or not. The disadvantage of this clear and direct feedback loop is that it creates so much focus on results that the inputs that create those results gets lost.
A new generation of buyers has grown up with the subscription buying model, a model promoted every day through the proliferation of apps offering everything from fitness to finance – all delivered at the tap of a finger.
In his book, Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future – and What to Do About It, Tien Tzuo, founder of Zuora, says executives need to think about how their companies will thrive in a subscription business. According to Tzuo: “If you’re not shifting to this business model now, chances are that, in a few years, you might not have any business left to shift.”
Recently, our team had the privilege of attending the board meeting for a large division of a Fortune 500 company. The topic for this discussion was how their organization will grow at 5x the rate of their market. Yes, you read that correctly. Their organization believes so strongly in product and people that they have decided that they will brave the journey to grow not 2x or even 3x, but 5x the rate of their market.
If you had a dollar to invest in your business, how would you decide where to invest? We realized that many of our clients are facing this question, and are struggling to come up with a good solution. This prompted us to investigate how other companies are handling investments so we could find the answer.
A common theme we have seen over the past two years is increasing investment into key accounts, which lead us to wonder:
- Why are customers choosing to invest in key account management?
- What has the return on their investment been?
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Events
Customer Engagement in the Virtual World – Lessons Learned from 2020 – Houston Sales Leadership Community Virtual Meeting
Sales Talent Requirements to Win in the Future – Chicago Sales Leadership Community Virtual Meeting
Sales Team Engagement in a Virtual World – Lessons Learned from 2020 – Atlanta Sales Leadership Community Virtual Meeting
