Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company, Second Edition

8. Sales Management to Add Value

Plantronics

Plantronics is a global leader in audio communications for businesses and consumers. The company’s primary sales channel is a large distributorship that sells to value-added resellers (VARs). Plantronics didn’t have many direct relationships with the VAR channel. Erna Arnesen was hired as VP, Global Channel & Alliance Marketing to grow their revenues. She quickly surmised that the market dynamics had changed. Plantronics’ products used to be sold primarily through audio specialists who understood the feature/function benefits. Now Plantronics devices were squarely in the technology arena being sold by generalists. Feature/function superiority was not enough. To understand how to create the right value ...