Welcome to the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast. Today, we're joined by Bal Dail to discuss how achieving strategic alignment between your corporate strategy and sales strategy can lead to you hitting your number with little internal friction.

Bal Dail is the Chairman and CEO of JDA Software, the provider of the broadest portfolio of supply chain solutions. During this interview, we discuss:

• His opinion why very few CEOs have come up through sales and the problem this can cause when trying to make your number with an effective sales strategy.
• A definition of the term “strategic alignment” and why it is critical to your success.
• Ways upon which a CEO can:
• • Drive market research output into sales strategy
  • Educate the sales team on the markets to compete in, the accounts to sell to, the buyers to meet with, the products to position, and the competitors to beat.
  • Make sure the leaders of product, marketing, sales, and HR are working with strategic alignment.

We use SBI’s recently released workbook titled “How to Make Your Number in 2016” to guide our conversation. Specifically, pages 51-70 which details SBI’s 8 Step Corporate Strategy Methodology.

We walk through the model while Bal explains how he uses a version of it at his company.  The benefit to you all is you get to see a “demo”, if you will, on how to use this tool. At the end of this show, if you want to use the SBI Workbook yourself, we let you know how to get it.

If you want to make sure your sales strategy is in tune with your corporate strategy, listen to this podcast and hear how one of your peers has done so.

Understanding strategic alignment is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. For more weekly sales and marketing insights like this, subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.

Welcome to the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast. Today, we're joined by Kim Mitchell to discuss how understanding the employee life cycle can unlock the secrets to employee retention and maintaining employee engagement.

Kim Mitchell is the Chief People Officer at Renaissance Learning, the world leader in cloud-based assessment, teaching, and learning solutions. If anybody knows how to keep a sales and marketing team happy, engaged and open to new things, it’s her.

Kim explains how the relationship a member of the sales team has with the company changes over time, or even across a business cycle. The relationship starts during the recruiting stage, which is a very different relationship from when a sales person is in on boarding, at year 1, during a promotion, and at key milestones, such as the 10 year anniversary.

Employee engagement goes up, or down, based on whether the employee has an emotional connection with the mission of the sales force, and the company.

And the adoption of a new sales team initiative is tightly correlated with employee engagement.

So, how do you drive employee engagement in the sales force? What are the secrets to employee life cycle management? Tune in and find out.

Understanding the employee life cycle is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. For more weekly sales and marketing insights like this, subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.

Today on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast we take a fun approach to a series topic: how to make the most of your honeymoon period as a new VP of sales. To guide us through these treacherous waters, we’re joined by Eric Vermillion, a Senior VP of sales who also happens to be in the thick of his honeymoon period with his company, Blue Cat.

To frame today’s conversation, we’ll walk through a hypothetical use case starring Vic, a made-up persona who just finished his first six months at new company as VP of sales and is now ready to launch a set of initiatives. We look at why Vic should throw out his old sales playbook in favor of a sales strategy tailored to his new products, customers, competitors and channels. We talk about how Vic can ensure his initiatives have strategic alignment with his new company’s missions and values. We also look at hiring practices and how Vic can avoid the common pitfall of trying to fix problems by throwing fresh bodies at them. Other topics we cover: knowing when to ask for help, not passing the buck, getting too wrapped up with hitting big numbers, overbuying software, sales management, avoiding unnecessary consulting and how to handle the compensation plan. Tune in, and take notes as we walk Vic (and you!) through your honeymoon period and we’ll see you on the other side!

Understanding how to excel as a new VP of Sales is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. Want more weekly sales and marketing insights like this to help you make your number? Subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.