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The Machine
Book

The Machine

A Radical Approach to the Design of the Sales Function

Justin Roff-Marsh
Greenleaf Book Group, 2015
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Brace yourself for plain talk about what’s wrong with sales and marketing. Consultant Justin Roff-Marsh says that traditional approaches no longer work: inventories pile up; customers avoid visits from field salespeople; sales technology makes things worse; and commissions and bonuses drive salespeople to underperform. Roff-Marsh, a survivor of the hard-knocks world of sales, interlaces his old-school approach to leadership with a gentler understanding of human motivation. His examples, if sometimes strident, provide sound solutions. Even seasoned sellers, sales executives and CEOs will discover challenging new tactics and strategies for reinventing sales. getAbstract recommends Roff-Marsh’s change-driven manual as an illuminating treatment of an alternative tactic for daring salespeople, sales managers, and senior leaders seeking an original and comprehensive sales strategy.

Summary

Forget What You Know

Despite tremendous changes in organizations and the marketplace, sales operations in companies look much as they did five decades ago. The conventional wisdom that most firms invariably follow results in familiar sales organizations under the leadership of a manager and with autonomous outside salespeople. Salespeople maintain the primary relationship with customers, and earn commissions for new and repeat sales. They immerse themselves in the process of selling – from generating leads, managing paperwork and inputting their activity into reporting systems to closing sales and owning the customer relationship thereafter. It all sounds reasonable until you realize that most salespeople spend hardly any time selling. In fact, selling accounts for only about 10% of their daily schedules.

Solving a broken sales system and building a sales machine involves great effort and radical transformation. You should close all of your field sales offices; stop hiring external salespeople and bring those you have in-house; drop all commissions and bonuses; divorce sales from production; don’t let salespeople handle renewals or repeat business; and ensure that ...

About the Author

Speaker and consultant Justin Roff-Marsh counsels firms about changing their sales methods.

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