Sixteen of the World’s Top Sales Experts are Meeting. Get a Seat at the Table.

We’re excited to announce that 3g Selling founder Martyn Lewis was recently selected as a panelist for the ES Research Group Sales Thought Leader Series taking place this fall.

Martyn’s panel, Today’s Successful Sales Managers, will take place on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET.

Below is the announcement from ES Research Group, with the link to reserve your seat at the table.

ES Research Group, Inc. (ESR), the leading sales training research and advisory firm will host a series of four, online panel discussions in which 16 sales industry leaders debate today’s critical sales issues. The public may listen to the unrehearsed discussions and ask questions during the live, one-hour online sessions. Free registration for any or all discussions is available at http:/www.ESResearch.com/thought-leaders

The following panel discussions will be offered:

Today’s Successful Sales Managers: Who Are They, What Do They Do, and How Do They Do It?
Wed., Oct . 12, 2011 1:00 ET

Panelists:

• Dave Kurlan, CEO, Kurlan Associates
• Martyn Lewis, Founder and Principal, 3gSelling
• Steve Johnson, President, The Next Level Sales Consulting
• Richard Lane, Partner, durhamlane ltd.

CRM and Other Technology-Enabled Selling Platforms and Applications: What Works and What Doesn’t?
Wed., Oct. 26, 2011, 1:00 ET

Panelists:

• Bruce Wedderburn, Exec VP, Huthwaite
• Rich Blakeman, SR. VP, Miller Heiman
• Joe Vance, Senior Consultant, Performance Methods, Inc.
• Donald Daly, CEO, The TAS Group

Increasing Sales Effectiveness Across a Global Sales Organization
Wed., Nov. 9, 2011, 1:00 ET

Panelists:

• Jonathan London, President, Improved Performance Group
• Henk van de Kuijt, Global Director International Business, Mercuri International
• Richard Barkey, CEO, Imparta
• David DiStefano, CEO, Richardson

Selling To and Negotiating With Today’s Tougher, Strategic Procurers/Buyers/Sourcers
Wed., Nov. 30, 2011, 1:00 ET

Panelists:

• Julie Thomas, President and CEO, ValueSelling Associates
• Brian Dietmeyer, President and CEO, Think! Inc.
• Ron D’Andrea, President, BayGroup International
• Stephanie Woods, Executive VP, Huthwaite

The Sales Thought Leader Series is sponsored by American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), Customer Think, Inside View, The Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training (SMT), Outstart, SalesForceXP and Sales Management Association (SMA).

About ES Research Group, Inc.
ES Research Group (ESR) is the only source for independent research and advice on sales performance improvement programs and the companies that provide them. ESR offers a range of analytic and assessment reports, teleconferences and advisory services. www.esresearch.com.

Powerful Pipelines for Sales Success: A New Promotional Offer for Live Virtual Sales Training

This week, 3g Selling launched a new promotional campaign for our Powerful Pipelines for Sales Success live virtual sales training program.

See the announcement here.

For a limited time, organizations can register their sales managers and sales reps for the program and save 20% off the normal registration fee.

Interested in this offer? You can sign up here.

Who Should Register
Anyone with the responsibility for maximizing sales results from an account, a territory or a portfolio of channel partners, and/or those who manage such roles.

Program Summary
This program provides a unique way in which to take business and planning fundamentals to the profession of salesperson—and in a manner that sales people will embrace.

Central to the program is the belief that the sales pipeline is the very core of what selling is all about. In a totally unique way, the program reveals that the traditional sales funnel should rarely be actually shaped like a funnel. Using the ground breaking work of Martyn Lewis from Market-Partners, participants are shown how this traditional view of the sales funnel and pipeline could not only disguise what is really happening in their businesses but also be a detriment to performance, forcing time to be spent in the wrong sales activities at the wrong time.

Webinar on Sales Forecasting: The Key to Optimizing Your Sales Strategy

Sales Forecasting Webinar
Research, New Thinking and Best Practices
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific / 1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern

All too often, sales forecasting is seen as a zero-value-add exercise in reporting.

This webinar—delivered by 3g Selling founder Martyn Lewis in partnership with Advantage Performance Group—delves into the crucial role sales forecasting plays in optimizing your selling strategy and supporting the role of the sales manager as business leader and coach.

Register for the webinar.

In this webinar you will learn:

• Why current approaches to sales forecasting yield little result while burdening sales organizations with unnecessary administration
• The 5 typical mistakes made in forecasting approaches
• An optimal approach to best practice sales forecasting
• The 7 secrets of creating an accurate sales forecast
• Why the sales forecasting process is key to effective coaching

Why Can’t I Just Hire People Who Know How to Sell???

After decades in sales management and training, what still drives me crazy is the widespread belief that creating a great selling organization is about hiring good sales people. Time and time again, I’ve discovered it’s not the people you hire that counts in making a successful sale, it’s your strategy.

Sales managers need to craft a selling strategy that defines three things:

1. How you are going to engage in the market
2. How you will add value to your customer
3. How your product or service differentiates itself

Sales is a discipline, like manufacturing, engineering, and accounting, which, like any discipline, is built on standards. Sales is not an “intuitive” art form based on some sort of innate abilities and gung-ho attitudes. Let’s call it what it is: a discipline. You can’t simply hire sales people and let them run – there must be an overall playbook for sales as there is for other serious business operations.

In the playbook my sales and marketing consulting firm has developed over the years, there are three mandatory stages to designing how a sales force needs to operate:

1. Start by understanding the target market’s buying process. It is the buying process that makes things happen, not the sales process.
2. Craft a sales strategy to fit the company. Although this may seem obvious, it’s far from easy or obvious in most cases. For example, most companies we work with say they want their sales force to focus, but then they don’t know how they want to respond to opportunities that might exist outside of that focus. They say they want the sales force to call high, but then can’t articulate what would be of real interest to targeted executives when the sales force does call high. A well-thought out strategy, which examines all possible scenarios, will determine how the company will sell.
3. Design the sales process. The overall sales process needs to identify the three “w’s:” who is going to do what when, so as to synchronize with the customer’s buying process and also move that buyer forward, to complete the selling process.

Based on the outcome of this three stages, we can determine what skills are required by sales people to be successful in their role; we can equip them with the right tools to do the job; and we can manage, measure, and coach in a way that is both consistent and objective. In other words, we can turn sales into a discipline, with standards, tools, and measurable outcomes.

If we had allowed manufacturing to continue the way we have treated our sales force, factory workers – no matter how good their intentions – would be working without overall coordination and without defined procedures. This was the case on the manufacturing floor decades ago, until competitive forces encouraged companies to embrace process, to coordinate and manage functions. Now the same must be done for the sales function if it is to become a high-performing component of business.