Selling Business Services: It Takes More than Charm - Marketing Watchdog Journal

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		December 2008, Issue 58

Play the video to hear a message from Bill Golder, Executive VP at Miller Heiman

Selling Business Services: It Takes More than Charm
Results from "Business Services Sales Organizations: Catapulting off Previous Successes," derived from the 2008 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study

In a down economy, all sales organizations need to work a little harder to stay in the game. For business services organizations, this means stepping up efforts to align Sales and Marketing and leveraging the best practices of their top performers to improve others in the organization. According to the 2008 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study, a number of opportunities exist to improve yield for these companies. While they’re doing a good job of capitalizing on some things, giving attention to other areas may prove beneficial.

Want more results?
For additional sales best practices for business services industry, download "Business Services Sales Organizations: Catapulting off Previous Successes."

Selling in a different industry? Download the study's executive summary or browse Miller Heiman's library of available industry reports.

"The business services sector performed quite well in comparison to others in our study," said Sam Reese, president and CEO of Miller Heiman. "Still, the study revealed a number of areas of opportunity. These are particularly important to look at in today’s harsh economy."

Sales Is More than Charm; Marketing Is More than Collateral

In the study, business services organizations were 36 percent less likely than Winning Sales Organizations (WSOs) to agree that their sales and marketing departments are aligned with what their customers want and need. The study defines WSOs as those that had at least 20 percent growth in new account acquisition, average account billing and annual revenue over the previous year.

According to Reese, many companies still believe Sales is all about individual charm. In these cases, the marketing function is seen as doing little more than providing marketing collateral, he said.

"There are lots of experts in the field figuring out what they need as they go," Reese said. "They don't have a good idea of how to transfer best practices and knowledge. They don't have a good system to share what's working."

Putting More Energy into the Right Hiring Decisions Has Paid Off

In contrast, these companies are doing a great job hiring and ramping up their salespeople. The study found that business services organizations are 55 percent more likely than all respondents to use Web-based assessments to support hiring decisions.

"Because they rely on salespeople who can truly create value, they're more cautious than other sectors in their hiring processes," Reese said.

According to Bill Golder, executive vice president of sales for Miller Heiman, many of the companies in this space have long grasped the importance of the consultative sales approach because their offering is less tangible than other industries.

"It's not surprising that they are leading the way on how they approach hiring and ramp-up as it tends to require salespeople with greater business acumen to excel," Golder said. "Needing candidates with the appropriate level of expertise really requires that you have a rigorous process for selection and that you invest in a thorough ramp-up process."

To learn additional practices that differentiate top-performing business services sales organizations, download "Business Services Sales Organizations: Catapulting off Previous Successes" from the 2008 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study. Selling in a different industry? Download the study's executive summary or browse Miller Heiman's library of available industry reports.

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About Miller Heiman: The Sales Performance Company
For 30 years, Miller Heiman has brought precision to the art of selling through simple, yet powerful processes and tools to help drive performance, especially in complex selling environments. Miller Heiman publishes the award-winning Sales Performance Journal and conducts the world's largest annual research project on sales effectiveness, the Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study. This study reveals best practices, trends, issues, and opportunities in today's selling environment. As the thought leader in sales performance, Miller Heiman provides organizational sales process implementations that result in revenue predictability, clearer sales management communication, and best practice selling activities that can be replicated. Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, Miller Heiman has offices around the world and partners in over 20 countries. For more information, please call 877.552.1747.

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