Business
In selling, as in sports, software or the arts, the best are not slightly better than average but far better. The top fifth of salespeople often bring in half or more of a company's revenue, so who you hire and keep matters enormously.
Buying now happens across many channels at once, but online selling has not swallowed in-person selling. Because customers touch the company in many places, the seller becomes more visible to them, and sales must use more data and coordinate more closely with other departments.
A coherent sales approach rests on three things: clear rules for which customers to pursue, since effort spent on some accounts can't go to others; an accurate picture of how target customers buy today; and the economics of reaching them, including the cost to serve each segment and the matching metrics and incentives.
Most companies set prices by adding a margin to their costs, but price and the value customers perceive are bound together. When customers can easily compare information, pricing from cost is risky, and pricing based on value is possible in more categories than managers assume.
Companies spend more per person on sales training than on any other function, yet get poor returns. Most of it is classroom teaching delivered months before it's needed, when people actually learn from peers and from information available at the moment they use it.
Forecasts of a 'new normal' usually stretch behavior seen under unusual temporary conditions straight into the future. Sound decisions need an accurate view of the present and how it might change, not sweeping generalizations or false either-or choices about trends.
A top performer's results come less than half from their own ability; the rest comes from the organization around them, such as its brand, tools, training and team. Hiring stars away from other firms often disappoints, because the star leaves much of their performance behind.
Managers believe they can judge future performance from an interview, but research shows their judgments match actual results less than half the time. Confidence in a gut read of a candidate far exceeds its accuracy.
Most sales plans assume buyers move step by step from awareness to interest to desire to purchase. In fact buyers jump between online and offline sources, such as reviews, websites and salespeople, in no fixed order, so a straight-line pipeline model misreads how decisions get made.
In service-heavy economies, selling is a major driver of productivity and growth, so how well companies sell affects jobs and livelihoods far beyond shareholder returns. Improving it is therefore a core responsibility of managers, not just a route to profit.