Your Most Powerful Sales Tool
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010What do you consider to be the most powerful tool in the sales leader’s and sales executive’s toolkit?
That is a question that I posed, via Survey Monkey, to sales and executives and leaders worldwide. The results are not surprising.
Responses came in from close to 100 executives (93 to be exact). Here is the breakdown.
Persons polled
Senior Management: 29.3%
Sales Management: 43.9%
Sales Executives: 19.5%
Inside Sales: 2.4%
Other: 4.9%
Geographical breakdown
Asia Pacific: 63.4%
North America: 26.8%
South America: 0%
Europe and UK: 9.8%
Middle East and Africa: 0
Other: 0
Results
A sales process: 26.8%
Product and technical knowledge: 4.9%
Relationships: 63.4%
Company knowledge: 2.4%
Branding and marketing: 0%
Other: 2.4%
Comments
Clearly, relationships are most important. So why don’t more Senior Sales Managers and Sales Managers focus on relationship building soft skills? Is it not sexy? Not sexy because it can’t be measured with hard numbers? Most probably.
With a score of 0% for branding and marketing, isn’t it time that sales and marketing start to integrate more? Think of all the dollars paid for marketing and branding; how is that measured?
Your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.
(Thank you to those who contributed)
Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore
