When I first started writing about sales in
2007 my main angle was that we should “bring science to selling”. As an
engineer, I could not understand how we had applied virtually no science to how
we sold. Everything seemed to be left up to the individual sales person.
Today, we’ve had a lot of improvement. Some
great thought leaders have written and spoken about this so much, that some
actual change has occurred in real sales organizations.
SDRs have landed
One of the breakthroughs that has occurred in building
more efficient sales organizations has been role specialization. Most obviously
introducing Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to drive leads, or appointments, to
their account executive colleagues. I give a ton of kudos to blokes like Aaron Ross for
figuring this out, evangelizing it and implementing it in dozens of companies.
There’s evidence now that this structural
change in sales organizations has driven higher revenue. These organizational
transformations have gone hand-in-hand with the adoption of many new software
tools to
