Miller Heiman Sales Best Practice

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Highlights from the 2009 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Bill Golder, Executive Vice President of Business DevelopmentDamon Jones, President and Managing Director of InternationalModerator: Elizabeth Vanneste, Chief Marketing Officer


slide 22009 © Miller Heiman, Inc. All rights reserved. www.millerheiman.com

Agenda

� Definition of World-Class

� 2009 Research Highlights

� Key Best Practices

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2009 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study

� Annual study reveal trends, issues, opportunities in a complex selling environment

� Benchmarks year-over-year trends

� Survey conducted in October 2008

� Sixth year of study

� 3,900+ sales professionals participated in current study

� 21,000 participants to date



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What Does Sales Performance Look Like?

� Retaining existing customers

� Acquiring new customers

� Improved forecast accuracy

� More of sales force hitting quota

� More qualified

opportunities/leads



World-Class Defined

� View sales performance as a

comprehensive selling and sales

management system.

� More likely to achieve growth

across 5 key sales performance

metrics.

� 7% of all 2009 respondents

qualify as World-Class.

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Meet Revenue Objectives in the First Half of 2009?

How confident are you that your organization will meet revenue objectives

in the first half of 2009?



Revenue Growth

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Creating Opportunities



Get Focused on Business Development

We consistently follow a

standardized process to qualify opportunities.

OthersWorld Class

91% 37%

OthersWorld Class

89% 37%

Sales and Marketing are

aligned in what our customers want and need.

OthersWorld Class

86% 39%

We have a formalized value

proposition that is very compelling to our prospects.

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Sales and Marketing Alignment at a 3-Year High

Sales and marketing alignment is trending higher among those in complex selling environments.

20082007

30% 31%

2009

37%

Sales and Marketing are aligned in what our customers want and need.

*This activity is at a 3-year high for agreement.



Ideal Customer Profile Gaining in Importance

Best practice organizations are investing in tools and processes to understand their Ideal Customer Profile.

20082007

32% 31%

2009

37%

We always follow a standardized process to qualify opportunities


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Poll

� Are your marketing efforts attracting leads that match your Ideal Customer Profile?– 100% - All leads are a good match

– More than 50%

– About 50%

– Less than 50%

– We do not get leads from marketing



Managing Opportunities

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Align with Your Customer’s Buying Process

� When we give price concessions, we always get comparable value in return.

� We clearly understand our customers' issues before we propose a solution.

OthersWorld Class

70%23%

OthersWorld Class

93% 50%



Get Close to the C-Suite

� We have a formal process for utilizing executive-to-executive selling.

� In a large deal, we always gain access to key decision makers.

OthersWorld Class

75%25%

OthersWorld Class

87% 42%

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Executive Involvement



Significant Increase in Collaboration to Pursue Large Deals

20082007

38% 35%

2009

50%

Our organization utilizes processes and tools to collaborate among teams pursuing large deals


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Managing Relationships



Surprises in Customer Management

20082007

32% 29%2009

25%

We are never surprised by the loss of a strategic account

*This activity is at a 3-year low for agreement.

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Get Closer to Customers

We jointly set long-term

objectives with our strategic accounts.

OthersWorld Class

90% 42%

OthersWorld Class

89% 36%

We always review the

results of our solution with strategic accounts.

OthersWorld Class

92% 43%

Our organization regularly

collaborates across department to manage strategic accounts.



Poll

� Right now, my sales efforts are focused on:– Growing revenue from existing customers

– Acquiring new customers

– A combination of these two

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Develop Sustainable Process

� Aligning sales performance metrics with business objectives.

� Integrate sales process with CRM technology.

� Link performance reviews to ongoing coaching process.

� Allow flexibility to adapt to customers' changing needs.

� Capture and share best practices of top performers.



Everyone Today Will Receive…

� Link to a recording of today’s session.

� Executive summary & full report of the results of the 2009 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study.

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Q&AQuestions & Answers

Miller Heiman Sales Best Practice

Documents

Transcript of Miller Heiman Sales Best Practice