Selling Through Someone Else: How to Use Agile Sales Networks and Partners to Sell More

Selling Through Someone Else: How to Use Agile Sales Networks and Partners to Sell More

by Robert Wollan, Naveen Jain, Michael Heald
Released January 2013
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118496381

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Book description

Experience the growth multiplier effect through transforming the distribution and sales network

Selling Through Someone Else tackles new opportunities to drive company growth by taking a fresh look at the customer smart distribution and sales process. The authors, from Accenture, one of the world's largest consulting companies, explain how companies can be smarter about what their customers truly want and maximize the return on investment from all available resources for growth opportunities by exploring creative distribution options, including leveraging partners, online outlets, iPads/tablets, your traditional sales force, and more.

Selling Through Someone Else demonstrates that traditional approaches are no longer effective and how, by capitalizing on converging forces, companies can transform their "sales" approaches to grow revenue, and enhance customer and brand loyalty.

  • Explores how globalization, new competitors, and low-cost threats are reshaping the way sales is happening today, and how to prepare your company to be successful in this new dynamic and iterative selling model

  • Shows how analytics, the shift to digital selling and mobile sales tools, and new approaches to sales operations can reshape the entire sales function

  • Demonstrates how new ecosystems of partners are created, managed, and incented to drive greater sales and profitability

Accenture has helped numerous clients collaborate across IT, Sales, and Marketing to dramatically grow distribution and adapt to the different "playing field" of today. Selling through Someone Else applies the trends and lessons learned from Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies to mid-sized enterprises and small-medium businesses owners.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Preface
  5. Section I: The Rising Impact of Sales and Distribution: Why “Good Enough” Isn't Enough Anymore
    1. Chapter 1: Why It's Time to Change Selling: Your Sales Model Is Broken
      1. Four Challenges Sales Leaders Face
      2. Stumbling Blocks to Change
      3. Conclusion
      4. Notes
    2. Chapter 2: The Solution—Agile Selling: Growth Can Come from Investing in Your “Selling Force,” Not Just Your “Sales Force”
      1. What Leading Companies Get Right
      2. Conclusion
      3. Notes
    3. Chapter 3: The Agile Sales and Distribution Ecosystem
      1. The Implications of Operating in This New Ecosystem
      2. Getting to the Details: Changes to Sales Processes
      3. Where to Begin
      4. Conclusion
      5. Notes
    4. Chapter 4: Time for a Refresh: The Updated Sales Strategy
      1. Do You Have a Sales Strategy?
      2. Transforming the Sales Strategy with New Guiding Principles
      3. What Does the Good Sales Strategy Look Like?
      4. Building an Actionable Sales Strategy—What Leading Companies Get Right
      5. Conclusion
    5. Chapter 5: Looking for Channel-Selling Innovation?: Four Industries That Stand Out
      1. Common Ground
      2. Insights from Consumer Goods Manufacturing
      3. Insights from the Pharmaceutical Industry
      4. Insights from the Insurance Industry
      5. Insights from the Electronics and High-Tech Industry
      6. “Copying” Is Encouraged
      7. Notes
  6. Section II: The New Agile Selling Model and Strategy
    1. Chapter 6: Advanced Strategies for Customer Targeting and Lead Generation
      1. Lead Generation's New Profile: More Channels, More Challenges
      2. Responding with Technology
      3. A Leading-Practice Approach to Demand Generation
      4. Utilizing Advanced Analytics to Target the Right Accounts
      5. Backing Up the Lead Generation Process with Intelligent Lead Distribution Capabilities
      6. Lead Management's Leading Edge
      7. Notes
    2. Chapter 7: A Renewed Focus on the Differentiated Customer Buying Experience
      1. The Forces of Change: What's Driving the Emphasis on Customer Buying Experiences?
      2. Companies Have Been Slow to Change
      3. The Benefits of Change
      4. A Structured Approach to Optimizing the Customer Buying Experience
      5. Diagnosing Customer Needs
      6. Designing and Building the Experience
      7. Notes
    3. Chapter 8: Price Strategies in a Multichannel World
      1. The True Meaning of “Price”
      2. Pricing to Account for Multiple Channels to Market
      3. The Complexities of Pricing across Sales Channels
      4. Getting a Handle on Channel Pricing
      5. Key Enablers to Effective Pricing
      6. A Job Never Completed
      7. Conclusion
      8. Notes
    4. Chapter 9: Bringing Science to Selling
      1. Analytics at Work
      2. The Turning Tide
      3. Eliminating Blind Spots with Analytics
      4. Key Outcomes Sales Analytics Can Drive
      5. The Time Is Now, But How?
      6. A Final Word on Developing a Sales Analytics Capability
      7. Notes
    5. Chapter 10: Incentives That Drive Performance: Motivating the Right Behaviors with the Right Sales and Marketing Incentives to Optimize ROI
      1. The Incentive Conundrum
      2. Parsing the Problem: More Art Than Science?
      3. Sales and Marketing Incentives: Developing ROI-Focused Approaches
      4. Optimizing Spending
      5. Building the Underlying Capabilities
      6. What's It Worth to You?
      7. Notes
  7. Section III: Building the Better Network—Positioning for Success and Effectiveness
    1. Chapter 11: Joint Initiatives: A Step Change for Sales Collaboration
      1. What Is the Joint Initiative Framework?
      2. Launching a Joint Initiative
      3. Factors for Success
      4. Conclusion
    2. Chapter 12: A New Look at an Old Problem: Selling to Small- and Medium-Size Businesses
      1. Big Opportunity
      2. Why Many SMB-Targeted Sales and Marketing Efforts Fall Short
      3. How to Approach the SMB Market
      4. Charting the Course to SMB Success
      5. Notes
    3. Chapter 13: Using Social Media to Engage Buyers, Empower Sellers, and Reinvent the Sales Process
      1. The Sales Force Is Struggling to Respond
      2. How Social Media Can Improve the Situation
      3. How Social Sales Works
      4. Engaging Buyers, Empowering Sellers, and Reinventing Sales Processes
      5. Applying Social Sales to the Traditional Sales Funnel
      6. Making the Transition to “Social Selling”
      7. Pitfalls That May Cause Social Sales to Fail
      8. Expanding Far beyond Corporate Boundaries
      9. The Future and What to Do Now
      10. Conclusion
      11. Notes
    4. Chapter 14: Around the Block or Around the World: How to Enter New, Global Markets
      1. Africa: A Growing Middle Class Offers Substantial Opportunities for Growth
      2. Middle East: Forging the Right Mix of Business Arrangements across the Region
      3. Conclusion
      4. Notes
  8. Section IV: Beyond the “Pilot” Phase: The Core Components of the Agile Selling Enterprise—Positioning for Efficiency
    1. Chapter 15: The CIO Sales Agenda: How to Build an Advanced Sales and Distribution IT Infrastructure
      1. IT and the Battle of Operational Complexity
      2. The Need for an IT Evolution
      3. Four Steps to Improve the Global IT Operating Model
      4. The CIO's Role in Agile Selling
      5. Conclusion
      6. Notes
    2. Chapter 16: Tablets, Smartphones, and Apps: The Importance of a Clear, Standardized Mobility Strategy
      1. New Tools, New Potential, New Challenges
      2. How Are Companies Responding to Their Mobile Technology Challenges?
      3. Strategy-Development Cornerstones
      4. Framing a Mobility Strategy
      5. Delivering Results through Sales Innovations—Exploiting the “Cutting Edge” of Mobility
      6. Notes
    3. Chapter 17: New Rules for Tools and IT Infrastructure: The Cloud and Agile Tools, Processes, and Systems
      1. The Need to Be Collaborative, Rapid, Rigorous, and Outcome-Based
      2. What Technology Can, and Must, Deliver
      3. What Happens When Business and IT Aren't on the Same Page?
      4. The Promise of Cloud and Agile Delivery Methods
      5. Determining the Right Approach
      6. Getting It Right: Critical Success Factors
      7. Conclusion
      8. Notes
  9. Section V: Empowering Employees for Selling Success
    1. Chapter 18: Profiling and Shaping a High-Performance Sales Force
      1. Greater Complexity Requires New Sales Competencies
      2. What Has to Change: The Building Blocks for Creating Agile, High-Performance Sales Talent
      3. How to Change: Putting the Building Blocks into Action
      4. Conclusion
      5. Notes
  10. Index

Product information

  • Title: Selling Through Someone Else: How to Use Agile Sales Networks and Partners to Sell More
  • Author(s): Robert Wollan, Naveen Jain, Michael Heald
  • Release date: January 2013
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118496381