Photo credit: zooboing

 
It is a sales truism that we've been given two ears and one mouth and they should be used in roughly that proportion. This is the classical sales ratio - 2:1.

In recent years, there has been tremendous discussion and discovery around Sales as science, not art. I believe this to be true - at least in part. Sales is no longer a black box; a magical alchemy known only to the Sales illuminati.

(Take a look at HubSpot VP of Sales, Mark Roberge’s Scalable Predictable Sales & Marketing presentation for great perspective on metrics-based management)

The new sales ratio

Selling certainly isn't unknowable wizardry, but neither is it a chemical reaction.

That's why I'd like to suggest a new sales ratio. 1:1. 

A brief example

I'm lucky enough to have seen Jill Konrath present. Jill argues the case that buyers’ realities have changed (doing more with less, risk and change averse, using the web to self-educate) and this means our sales approaches must adapt.

I'm very excited to announce the launch of our 2012 Inside Sales Metrics Research. This will be our third research project in the metrics & compensation series - where we collect, analyze & share the numbers that drive B2B Inside Sales for tech companies. 

To those that know me well, I’m not making news when I confess my love for Salesforce.com. Add in metrics, reports and dashboards and we have a perfect weekday afternoon.

That being shared, I recently stumbled upon a recorded Dreamforce session on "Sales Prospecting Secrets: How Salesforce.com Fills the Funnel with Hot Leads." Needless to say, that’s right up my alley.

Since the full session clocks in at 52 minutes, I thought I'd share some of the highlights here. The first part of the talk is given by Erik Nierenberg,VP of Sales Business Development, and covers his outbound-focused team.

Point 1: Build Career Path into your Sales Roles

Judging by the constant stream of job postings in the Inside Sales Experts LinkedIn group, the market for Inside Sales talent in Europe is hot.

Recruiting a German-Speaking Inside Sales Specialist in (Reading, UK)
Looking for Dutch-Speaking Business Development Agents for an IT Co. (Barcelona, Spain)
Hiring Multilingual Inside Sales Reps Based in Dublin (Ireland)

Through numerous conversations with clients, we've been hearing anecdotal feedback about the challenges US & Canadian companies are facing when building inside teams targeting the European market: the more active role of resellers, hiring for sales/language skills, list & data sources, acceptance of phone & web selling, etc.