Sales Effectiveness Requires Collaboration More than Leads, says Aberdeen Group ReportSales Effectiveness Requires Collaboration More than Leads, says Aberdeen Group Report

Sales effectiveness is dependent upon more than just providing sales with more leads. It requires strong collaboration between an enterprise's marketing and sales organizations, says a report by Aberdeen Group, a research firm serving corporate technology end-users around the world.

"It is common for senior management to believe that what sales needs to be successful is simply a matter of sending them more leads," said Chris Selland, Aberdeen's vice president of sell-side research and author of the report. "But in reality, our study found that the most highly-correlated factor affecting sales effectiveness is collaboration, not leads."

The report, "Sales Effectiveness: Helping Sales Sell" found that collaboration between marketing and sales is particularly important. "But it's actually bigger than that," Selland added. "To be successful and effective, companies often need to structure multi-functional selling teams. Salespeople told us very specifically that they always want more leads — but what they really need is better collaboration, and more productivity-enhancing solutions."

The report also found that it is often lesser-known technologies — such as social networking, incentive management, 'point of close' tools and marketing process enablers — which have the greatest impact on sales effectiveness. More traditional, and widely deployed, technologies such as sales force automation (SFA) have far less impact on the effectiveness of sales.

The report provides strategies to determine the right approach for an enterprise and how best to implement sales effectiveness strategies to maximize sales productivity, lower sales cycle times, increase win rates, and drive more profitability from sales operations. A copy of the report can be obtained at http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_company/hottopics/saleseffectiveness/default.htm.