Today’s sales executives are evolving from top-line focused field sales generals to segment leaders—challenged to optimize customer coverage, share-of-wallet and yield across a hybrid set of direct and indirect channels.

As markets mature and become more competitive, the challenge of keeping field productivity ahead of shrinking gross margins requires companies to rethink the sales model and how they align and retool their sales forces to grow profitably.

Since MarketBridge’s pioneering work in the late 1980s on multi-channel economics, we have developed significant experience, processes, tools and expertise in helping clients design, build, and transform field sales organizations to improve coverage, acquisition and productivity.

Sales Strategy

Translating a growth strategy into an actionable sales strategy with the sales organization and channel partners is a critical priority for today’s global sales executives.  MarketBridge’s Enterprise Channel Planning methodology realigns the roles and mix of field sales professionals to better serve customers and partners, while identifying scalable levers that improve productivity and reduce marginal sales cost.Our high-performance sales models consist of:

• A deep understanding of shifting buyer needs and segment opportunity
• The company’s evolving portfolio and value proposition
• The economics of distribution alternatives
• Factors driving pipeline and resource productivity.

This collaborative process ultimately results in an improved growth and economic model, actionable plans that can be executed by sales and channel resources, governance structures that improve in-field roles and performance, and a clearer value proposition for winning customer share.

Field Transformation

MarketBridge combines proven methods, process and sales management acumen, and a determined focus to increase field team ownership of the sales model. At its core, a successful sales model must drive substantive change in the field, among them:

• improved roles and teaming
• optimized customer and territory coverage
• more effective sales processes, better opportunity management
• more effective management structures and professional development.

We view these changes as the heart of the transformation, and we partner with clients in the field to pilot,iterate, and scale the new model while empirically measuring and forecasting its effect on customer attitudes, pipeline, and sales conversion.  New processes and training are built, best practices are identified and shared, and improved pipeline and resource management are deployed to enable greater visibility and continuous improvement.

Integration of Alternate Channels & Marketing

It’s an increasingly multi-channel world, and the pressures to drive new product adoption, upsell, and cross-sell mandate greater integration of marketing and sales to drive productivity.  As part of the sales transformation, MarketBridge brings a host of deep expertise in:

• Partner channel development
• Construction and integration of telesales and web channels
• Integration of marketing capabilitie

These combine to further leverage the field sales organization to pursue its highest value priorities – senior buyer relationships, new business acquisition, and sophisticated solutions and value propositions.  Through our other service areas, we work with companies to build, integrate and manage these channels to enhance the overall sales model.

Compensation

Our research shows that most sales executives believe their compensation model is not aligned with sales objectives, and the incentive structure doesn’t adequately motivate required changes in sales activity.  Companies struggle effective quota-setting, minimizing plan complexity and differentiating top performers to enhance retention. Our SFE practice compensation experts ensure optimal compensation models by alignment of the following:

• Structure with quota and crediting
• Corporate business objectives with sales rep performance
• Customer satisfaction with an affordable cost of sales.

Compensation continues to be a critical enabler of any sales model, yet traditional pay and performance structures often do not reflect the increasingly sophisticated set of go-to-market objectives to drive particular segments and products, as well as the multi-channel teaming environments that can often lead to “compensation stacking” or channel conflict.  In short, we design end-to-end sales compensation programs that align incentives where the field reps can drive the most value in certain segments, customer acquisition scenarios, sales process roles and product categories.

Sales Enablement

Sales enablement encompasses a growing set of tools, skill development, customer content, competitive intelligence, pipeline management and processes that enable the field to manage a growing number of customer segments, channels, product offers and value propositions.  Today the emphasis is on:

• Leveraging CRM investments
• Improving customer contact through more methodical customer data mining
• Standardizing sales approaches in systematic portals
• Implementing virtual training more effectively
• Enhancing pricing and bid processes
• Accelerating new marketing and sales programs through the sales force

Especially for companies selling to other businesses (B2B), field sales reps are evolving into “quarterbacks,” integrating marketing, product and services sales teams at the point of sale.

Finally, we operate the same types of programs we design for our clients.  For clients who want to accelerate or expand their entry or coverage of specific customer or product markets, the SFE practice, in conjunction with the Firm’s Sales Services practice, develops and operates end-to-end sales programs combining field marketing, demand generation, telesales, and our contract field sales teams to deliver sales results.