MarketStar Blog

My leadership philosophy is a combination of my own experience and that of watching and being mentored by key contributors at MarketStar. What have I learned? A sales leader is an individual who isn’t afraid to roll up their sleeves to accomplish goals and lead their team to success. But we all know leadership takes more than barking orders!  I try to lead my teams with empathy, performance, and transparency as my guideposts. I don’t want to scare new hires away after their first week on the job!

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, How Will You Measure Your Life?, and other landmark business publications, writes about disruptive innovation. This occurs when smaller companies root a product or service in simple applications at the bottom of a market and relentlessly move up a market, resulting in the displacement of bigger companies. He states that large companies are consistently disrupted by smaller, nimbler, and more aggressive companies that attack a niche—or possibly lower end—of the market.

As the sales industry continues its rapid evolution, sales reps will need a higher level of technical competency to sell complex products, services, and solutions. Technology has created a demand for sales teams to stay up to speed on the wants and needs of their customers and the pulse of their respective industries at large. Not only is technology changing how teams operate and interact with their customers, but products are becoming increasingly complex. This requires a rethinking of sales knowledge and skill sets.

While most businesses believe that the risks of investing in emerging markets have increased over the past decade, just as many believe that the rewards have also increased, especially in markets that seem to have become saturated with existing customers and competition. In other words, businesses by and large believe that the risk and return ratio of investing in global markets is becoming increasingly favorable.

Sales organizations have an unprecedented amount of data available at their fingertips. While it’s easier than ever to access big data, the data itself can be overwhelming. In fact, 53 percent of sales managers say they feel overwhelmed by the volume of data, and 38 percent admit that they don’t know what to do with data once they get it.

You and your team of salespeople likely excel at closing sales. You likely have a firm grasp of managing your top enterprise accounts. However, managing a funnel of leads and prospecting and qualifying them for growth are also likely consistent challenges.

You aren’t alone. As data shows, 25 percent of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales, but 79 percent of marketing leads never convert. What’s more, 73 percent of leads are not sales-ready, and 50 percent are qualified but not yet ready to buy.

The industry has become both increasingly accessible and competitive thanks in part to improved tools and software. On one hand, technology has simplified and automated an array of processes. On the other, it has created a demand for sales teams and their managers to stay up to date.

These days, deploying the right technology and tools is essential to success. According to a recent report, the tools that a sales rep uses are highly correlated to the rep’s performance. In fact, 82 percent of top salespeople cite sales tools as “critical” to their ability to close deals.

You already know that inside sales drives more revenue at a lower cost. However, in order to manage teams and ensure a steady flow of leads, this requires appropriate tools and technology.

As big data becomes a reality for businesses looking to manage large volumes of information, data analytics tools have emerged as a reliable way to identify trends and patterns and monitor buyer activity. These tools create a better understanding of your prospects. And while this may be a no-brainer, information-based decisions are better than arbitrary or judgmental ones. 

Channel partners have become more diverse than ever, making it hard to rely on one or two profiles to build an effective support and coverage model. This diversity only grows as you move further down the list of channel partners until you reach the bottom tier, where most vendors see the mix of high diversity and low revenue potential as a reason to write off any support beyond a portal or website. If you want to capture significant long tail revenue, you need to avoid generic messaging and give partners effective communication that fits their specific needs.

After 28 years in the world of Sales as a Service™, MarketStar has forged many lasting relationships with leaders in our field. We’ve asked Claudio Ayub, a 20-year channel veteran and Chief Channel Strategist of Perks, to discuss his view on improving sales performance through his experience as a loyalty marketing expert with broad knowledge in strategy development, market management, and channel sales planning.