Most sales managers strive to run an effective sales operation, achieve top-line revenue expectations and bottom-line profitability, and develop salespeople into the “eagles” they can be.  There are three primary factors that inhibit their ability to do so:

1. Ineffective assessment of opportunities.  Most sales managers do not identify quality problems on opportunities being pursued by their salespeople.  These problems typically include:  No identification of a critical issue that will drive the buyer to act, no clear vision of how to solve the critical issue, inadequate proof that you have the capabilities to resolve the problem, the seller calling too low in the buyer organization, no buy-in to the value on the part of the buyer, no clearly articulated sequence of events leading to a buy decision.
2. Pipeline Balance and Management.  Today, most sellers are stuck in a pattern of having significant revenue swings, which is usually tied to trying to prematurely close opportunities in order to achieve end of quarter and end of year quota objectives.  This not only results in a lack of predictable results, but dooms sellers to repeat this pattern because they clear their pipelines at the end of the period, only to have to rebuild it again.
3. Skill Development.   Sales managers are unable to build an accurate picture of a seller’s skill deficiencies and then pursue a proactive action plan to help the seller measurably improve their ability in that skill.  This, in turn, prevents the seller from achieving “eagle” performance.

Enter Salesforce.  Managers believe that the investment in Salesforce will help them resolve these issues.  But after using Salesforce, here is what sales managers tell us:

“We use it as an expensive contact manager & inaccurate forecasting tool.”

“I don’t get an accurate view into key opportunities.”

“It doesn’t help me get my sellers’ pipelines balanced.”

“I can’t tell what really holds a seller back and help their performance.”

Adventace SMS™ helps Sales Managers overcome these and other difficulties by doing the following:

• The identification and resolution of problems or gaps on opportunities early in the sell cycle, along with helping them to better manage internal resources.
• Based on a few inputs from a sales manager, SMS determines a Seller’s optimal pipeline  for each sales stage and whether any gaps exist. In addition to providing metric-based recommendations to restore pipeline balance, SMS provides a color-coded pipeline so managers can make even more surgical pipeline balance and management recommendations to their sellers.
• For each seller, SMS builds a 30/60/90 day forecast, weighted by stage.
• Seller skill development couldn’t be easier.  SMS tracks sales performance which enables the Sales Manager to quickly assess and score salespeople in nine key selling skills.  It then takes sales performance to the next level by providing the Seller and Sales Manager with a surgical coaching plan that will help deliver metric-based performance improvement, and bottom line results, in one quarter or less.