My friend and sales trainer extraordinaire, John Barrows, has a great line:

Wow. There’s an obvious problem here.

Companies need a pipeline of sales candidates; while many Universities are producing graduates who’ve never seen the word ‘sales’ on the curriculum. Full disclosure: my degree in 19^th century Russian literature left me unprepared for Day 1 at my first sales job.

Moving towards a solution

I recently met David McFarlane with the Entrepreneurship Center at UMass Boston. David has 25+ years in B2B with time as VP, Alliances, COO and most recently co-founder and CEO. He now serves as Director and Entrepreneur in Residence for the EC.

We had a good chat about ‘the state of sales education’ and David shared two ways that UMass Boston is addressing the problem.

 
Better, faster, cheaper – you can only have two.

I’ve decided to touch a third rail of the current selling spirit: the ‘double tap’ -- the process of leaving a voicemail immediately followed by an email.

I’m a little afraid of getting flamed on this one, but hey, what the heck. 

Let me give you the scenario.

A sales rep is prospecting you and actually picks up the phone to reach out. Maybe you ignore them or maybe you’re away from your desk. They leave a voicemail, referencing that they’re also sending an email.

So, what happens next? 

 
If you have your finger on the pulse of Inside Sales, you know that breaking the ‘prospecting’ and ‘closing’ functions into two roles has crossed the chasm. Role specialization is here to stay. 

One of the big benefits is that specialized teams are responsible for a very clear piece of the sales process. You can measure effectiveness, add or subtract headcount, and course correct as needed.

Sadly, it’s not all joy in Whoville.

I’m noticing a concerning trend. More and more often, when revenue goals are missed, companies look at their Sales Development teams and assume that is where the problem lies.

In some instances, it certainly is. But I’d hazard a guess that at least half the time, the problem lies further down the sales funnel – right at the feet of either the Sales Reps or, potentially, the sales process itself.

 
Continuing our annual tradition, I've rounded up the very best of our writing and thinking from the past 12 months. So with a big thank you to our readers, new and old, here's the best of what we shared in 2013.

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