The Machine: A Radical Approach to the Design of the Sales Function

Salespeople spend so little time selling because they have so many responsibilities competing for their limited time, because each salesperson is a self-contained sales function.

Sales is the responsibility of a centrally coordinated team. This book shows how this innocent-looking assumption leads logically to a radical new approach to the design and management of the sales function.

David frees Jennifer of the requirement to do anything other than face-to-face business-development meetings. In addition to appointment scheduling, David performs all of the clerical tasks associated with the management of sales opportunities: data entry, reporting, literature fulfillment, expense tracking, and calendar management.

The majority of a salesperson’s day is dedicated to customer service and administrative activities, to solution design and proposal generation, and to prospecting and fulfillment-related tasks.

Almost without exception, salespeople recognize that production performance is the primary influence. In other words, the number-one thing an organization must do to retain its customers is deliver on time, in full, without errors.