Most sales professionals will be very focused on closing last minute deals in the popular end of year discount-fest enjoyed around this time of year by our customers. Most marketers will be considering how they can improve program performance in 2010 to generate more leads and build mindshare.
It's a bad time to be calling sales and marketing leaders to engage in conversations about improving sales and marketing performance in 2010, but when is a good time?
So instead of calling prospective 2010 clients, I'm posting a blog and sending a link with the top 10 things for sales and marketing leaders to consider in their planning for improved performance in 2010, with a link back to a landing page on our site to register interest in further discussion.

1. Sales and Marketing Messaging Alignment: of all the productivity initiatives, this one is the easiest to implement, the lowest cost, with the highest payback as it drives inbound marketing messaging on the Website and elevates the standard of sales conversations with customers.
   
   
2. Territory and Compensation review: are you rewarding your sales team for the behavior you are seeking? Do you have top reps sitting on house accounts and easily making their numbers and potential new stars struggling to learn the business and open new business at the same time, are you under or over paying for performance?
   
   
3. Adopt Inbound Marketing: If your sales team is still cold calling, then your marketing isn't working and your sales team is wasting a lot of time; inbound marketing is a better approach to lead generation. Inbound marketing using HubSpot has potential to significantly outperform cold-calling and traditional telesales performance over 6-12 months and provide an ongoing lead generation annuity. If you enter 2010 with an Inbound Marketing Strategy using HubSpot, you will exit it richer in many ways.
   
   
4. Get into Social Media: in particular, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and if you are in Europe (Germany) XING. These tools will help you research, connect and engage prospects for your products and services.
   
   
5. Implement Lead Nurturing best practices: if you are a thought leader in your market, or an early stage technology company that has a potential for leadership, you need to nurture your leads with a program that educates, informs and engages over the year until they are ready to convert.
   
   
6. Get performance data: so you can benchmark your performance against peers in your industry. The most comprehensive sales performance data I have seen is from CSO Insights and by clicking here to taking this survey you will receive a free copy of the 200+ page 2010 Sales Performance Optimization Survey from more than 1500 companies, when published in January.
   
   
7. Align your selling culture with the way your customers buy: Did you know that early adopters buy differently from mainstream buyers? Failing to engage and win the early market with novel technology is the leading cause of death for start-ups and many killer-products and it's both a sales and marketing problem.
   
   
8. Implement a professional sales certification program for your sales team: We know that sales performance improvement requires deliberate practice of skill and technique, regular role-playing and feedback from experts. A one-off training event is a waste of money without a learning methodology that includes Performance Support, Coaching, collaborative learning and support from experts and sales managers and a certification event to drive behaviour to attain a minimum standard.
   
   
9. Review CRM activity and make changes to formalise your sales process to create pipeline milestones and transparency in the sales process, so that everyone is selling the same way and that buyer and seller are aligned and qualified at each transition in the process. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at Landslide Technologies, it's the future of CRM - very cool!
   
   
10. Have a great holiday, enjoy your family and friends, get some well earned rest...you all deserve it; 2009 was the toughest year ever in our business.

To discuss any of the above topics and your performance goals for 2010, follow this link to contact Advanced Marketing Concepts Ltd.