What Is Operational Excellence in Sales and Marketing?

by Michael J. Webb (with Robert Ferguson) (pdf of this article) A reader from Microsoft recently asked me an interesting question: “What are the key parameters which define Operational Excellence in a sales and marketing organization?” I like the question, because Read more

How to establish a clear cause and effect relationship between promotional expenditure and sales

By Justin Roff-Marsh Over lunch, a CEO recently admitted to me that his financial controller was using his organisation’s profits to build quite a substantial commercial property portfolio. When I asked if this was best use of his organisation’s free cashflow, he smiled, “How Read more

Can Your Marketing and Selling Process Be Improved?

Michael J. Webb, Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. Originally published in Marketing Times Spring 2005 (pdf of this article) Process improvement has revolutionized manufacturing over the past two decades, but is only now coming Read more

What is Six Sigma… and Why Should Marketing and Sales Managers Care?

Michael J. Webb, Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. Origionally published in Marketing Times Summer 2005 Subsequently published in Marketing Watchdog Journal, August 2005 (pdf of this article) Six Sigma is a funny name for a serious way of boosting marketing and sales performance. It’s already transformed manufacturing in hundreds of companies, and it is now doing the same in marketing and sales in companies such as Bank of America, Dell, General Electric, HSBC, Service Master, Johnson & Johnson, Standard Register, Sun Microsystems, Xerox, and many more. To apply Six Sigma to marketing and sales in your company, you’ll probably need to think in new ways. With Six Sigma, you base decisions on measurement and analysis of activities and results, then improve the activities to improve the results. Believe it or not, that’s generally not how marketing and sales are now managed (with one exception, which I’ll discuss). This article explains the basics of applying Six Sigma to marketing and sales. As it turns out, Six Sigma practitioners have the same goal as marketers and sellers: to find more profitable ways of giving customers what they want. Creating Value We all know that good marketing and selling gets other people to take the actions we want them to take. The challenge is in figuring out Read more

Need to Improve Salespeople’s Behaviors? Don’t Bother with Sales Training or CRM Until You Face the Facts

Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) Have you ever wondered, what is the best way to incorporate sales training methodologies in a CRM system? Sometimes the question comes when a company wants a better return from Read more

Three Proven Tactics to Get Salespeople’s Cooperation in Launching New Initiatives

by Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) One of the most common questions from executives trying to improve sales and marketing results is this: “How can we get our salespeople’s cooperation in our new (blank) initiative?” Whether you Read more

Five Ways to Minimize Sales and Marketing Frustration, Waste, and Cost

by Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) What steps of your sales and marketing process produce the most cost, waste, and frustration? Here are five important mistakes you can work on to make your sales and marketing more Read more

Seven Ways to Permanently Improve Sales

by Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) Leading a company is a difficult job in the best of times. Yet executives can take common sense steps to make things easier to generate Read more