2008 Sales Handbook Sales Survey

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I generally like reading surveys that focus on the sales profession because it either teaches you something new or reconfirms a trend you already suspected. Either way - it gives you something to think about.

PROFIT magazine and the Canadian Professional Sales Organization completed their poll of 445 owners and sales staff of firms with less than 250 employees and $25 million in revenue.

A few topics:

• Effectiveness of sales software
• Effectiveness of lead generation methods
• Best compensation mix and most commonly used sales performance metrices
• What reps need to succeed
• How to best find great sales personnel
• Where reps fall short

We’ll point you to the full report in a minute - but here are a few interesting takeaways.

Amazingly enough, in the sales software effectiveness category, “in-house CRM” gets the highest score (6.6) but still only 47% of the surveyed people use this technology. Hosted CRM scores lower with a score of 5.4 and 39% usage in this poll.

Elsewhere in the report, referral programs and seminars are still considered the most effective demand generation methods but with a score of 5.6, reps indicate that the quality of sales leads still leaves something to be desired. Interestingly enough, their management scores the lead quality at 6.6 and obviously doesn’t think the problem is all that big.

72% of the respondents measure sales performance against revenue and 69% find “new clients” an important measurement. I don’t disagree - but the telling part here is that only 57% uses profitability for performance measurement and no more than 54% finds holding on to their current customer base important enough to tune a compensation plan towards it.

Another interesting insight - when being asked about the single biggest reason “why reps fall short”, an astonishing 47% of surveyed CEO’s and Sales Managers blames the rep’s motivation and work ethic.

Now, the taste of payback might be sweet though - because 49% percent of interviewed reps indicate they’d jump ship for higher compensation and better perks. I guess the silver lining in this number is that 46% would not consider going to a direct competitor.

Lots more to learn in PROFIT’s national sales survey