Market Research - CSO Insights
About CSO Insights
CSO Insights benchmarks the challenges faced by today's sales and marketing organizations. They track trends in the use of people, process, technology and knowledge to improve sales effectiveness.
Research is the core of their business. Each year, they survey thousands of Chief Sales Officers to learn the challenges they see as most critical. They also review offerings from solution providers to retain our position as the experts on options for CSOs.
CSO Insights write numerous articles and speak at major sales and marketing conferences to share what they have learnt with executives like you.
CSO Insights has served sales and marketing executives for over 15 years. They only offer pragmatic suggestions, experienced-based examples and the kind of insights you'll want before your next Executive Strategy Session or Board meeting!
CSO Insights Downloads
Sales Management 2.0 Optimizing Sales Performance 2011- Volume 6
24/06/11
Various articles faced by today's sales and marketing organisations including:- To grab my attention the sales person needs to tell something I don’t know about something that I am not aware of that I might have as a problem
- Improving close rates depend on managing every stage of the pipeline and not just the end of the sales cycle
- Sales people are good but they can be even better when they have effective sales leadership
- No matter how many new techniques, technologies come along there is one constant that needs to be maintained; look after your people
Sales Intelligence Challenge
10/05/2011
A report highlighting the benefits in using sales intelligence instead of sales data. The companies that are performing best are those that not only train their sales people but also give them tools to collate client sales intelligence without much effort.
Sales Management 2.0 Optimizing Sales Performance 2011 – Volume 5
19/04/2011
Various articles faced by today’s sales and marketing organisations including:- Having access to the right information to effectively sell is not a one-time project, but rather an ongoing, never-ending process due ever changing markets that we sell into.
- There is a lot of talk about “sales transformation” today. It is deeper than trying to figure out what type of sales training to provide, but more about a fundamental reinvention of to engage with prospects and customers.
- A question we should be asking and answering honestly is, “Are the people we have in sales today here because of what we did for them over the past two years, or in spite of what we did for them?”
- Focusing on the personal win side of Win-Results, being clear on sales process and keeping sales management’s ego in check are key components of a winning formula.
Sales Management 2.0 Optimizing Sales Performance 2011 – Volume 4
19/03/2011
Various articles faced by today’s sales and marketing organisations including:- The need to focus less on “selling” and consider how most effectively to evaluate a Customer’s desire to buy to be able to survive or even thrive in a downturn.
- The application of more science to sales and marketing is supporting the art of both of these.
- Having the information but not using it to determine how to build customer relationships costs money and customers.
- Managers trying to coach without metrics are holding up a mirror to the individual that is like one in a fun-house that shows a distorted reflection of the individual’s performance.
Optimizing Sales Performance 2010 – Volume 3
05/10/2010
Interviews that cover a broad range of issues and ideas that would be of interest to many sales and marketing executives for helping to optimise their strategies this year and beyond.
Sales Management 2.0 - Optimizing Sales Performance 2010 - Volume 2
As we entered 2009, we all knew we were in for a bumpy ride. So how bad was it? We asked the 2010 SPO study participants to share with us how they performed against their 2009 corporate revenue plan. The result was an average drop of 8% from 2008 to 2009, which represents the largest single year decline in performance in the history of the study.
What contributed to this collapse? Clearly, the state of the economy was part of it. The overall study data showed that for most companies uncertainty in the marketplace resulted in longer sales cycles, more calls required to close deals, and lower average size of the deals that closed. This was true for most companies, but not for all.
Here we are now in 2010. But what will happen this coming year is confusing. There are pundits predicting the recovery has already started, as well as others raising the red flag that the second wave of “W-shaped” recession is looming around the corner. So, what course of action should we take?
Sales Management 2.0 - Optimizing Sales Performance 2009 - Volume 1
What changes do our field sales; telesales; sales support; sales operations; and sales management teams need to make in order to optimize their performance to help achieve key objectives? And what help should they be looking for from the rest of the enterprise?
This first e-book we focused on interviewing seasoned sales professionals and visionaries about what “is” working in the following areas:
- Deepening Customer Relationships
- Effectively Sharing Best Sales Practices
- Optimizing Incentive Management
- Realigning How You Sell to How Customers Buy
- Selling Effectively When Selling Virtually
- Reassessing Major Account Management and Pricing
Sales Management 2.0 – Optimizing Sales Performance 2011 – Volume 7
03/10/2012
Jim Dickie, the author, outlines quite clearly a very simple strategy of focussing on the opportunities that you have a 75% chance of winning. It starts with defining the perfect prospect profile and then discusses the use of CRM to identify the organisations that would match that profile. It also highlights the need to review past forecasts and review what has happened and develop profiles for organisations where you have won and lost business.