And interestingly, of those three levels, the place most companies struggle isn’t the rep level—where they focus all of their time and energy—it’s the manager level. I’ve been getting a large number of M&A-related questions lately, specifically on how to integrate two different sales forces, the challenges posed by new or changing roles and responsibilities of reps and managers, as well as the shuffling of accounts that normally accompany a merger. To help, I’ve compiled here some key learnings gathered from members who have integrated two different sales forces into one. MORE >>

What it is: SEC FS and Banking members’ most popular resource, this study details how a single rep profile—the “Challenger”—is five times more likely to be a high performer than the type of rep most companies are creating–the “Relationship Builder” Challenger™ reps succeed because they excel in three major skills that set them apart from others: teaching unique perspectives, tailoring messages for resonance, and asserting control of sales interactions. In your opinion, what makes these resources “hot” for financial services and banking companies? MORE >>

For many companies, more insight and disruption creates more opportunity – but this isn’t the case for all. We call it the “1 of 3 problem,” where customers will acknowledge right up front that you’ve got a world-class solution, but they still won’t pay you for it because there’s at least one or two other companies than can meet their needs equally well. Because in a world of traditional sales and marketing, companies seek to first indentify customers’ top priorities and then meet or exceed customer requirement expectations.  Is the Challenger approach really all that new? MORE >>

To which the customer replies, “yes, we already know that, but we only need 95% uptime and 30,000 units output, and all the companies in consideration deliver that. This isn’t information in the public filing statement, annual review, or company website. At CEB we are fortunate to have a strong cross-functional perspective on what the best companies do. As our CEO, Tom Monahan, said in a recent interview with Consulting Magazine, “Companies’ love affair with big data has proven fickle. Thanks for sharing those as extensively as you did! And so what do you do? MORE >>

SEC Members : Listen to our webinars on  Social Media Credibility  and  Scalable Social Selling ; see how companies like  IBM  and  Eloqua  support reps to enter the online sphere and watch for our new Social Selling subtopic page (coming soon (This is the last post in our series on sales organizations’ emerging use of social media as a channel for shaping demand.). So what conclusions can we draw? 1)      Social Media and Social Selling are here to stay. Social media is not a passing fad and as online networking increases the spillover into B2B sales is somewhat inevitable. MORE >>