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Salesforce.com reporting has been a regular source of consternation among sales reps for as long as the customer relationship management software has been in use. Thousands of sales teams who utilize the software to track their sales opportunities and activities have ranted about the numerous difficulties in producing reports from their sales data. Here are …

As a successful sales manager you must differentiate between your sales pipeline review meeting and sales forecasting meeting. These meetings are different and serve two different purposes. Though they are both meant as a way for sales managers to monitor sales, key leading indicators, and strategy, and to coach reps– they each have a distinct focus …

Your Mission: You’re the VP of Sales. You just had a hallway conversation with the CEO about Joe Salesperson and you want to follow up with some data. It’s time to dust off your Salesforce reporting skills. Try this right now in your Salesforce.com portal: 1. Load up a report 2. Filter the report to …

My father, when I was getting out of school and hitting the job market for the first time, gave me some advice that has stuck with me. I was slaving over my resume and he told me “make your resume about your accomplishments, not your responsibilities.” You want accomplishments because it proves that you have …

I’m on the record strongly in favor of as much objectivity as possible when building your sales forecast. So much so, that I pick fights with prominent venture capitalists on the topic. If your sales cycle is relatively short, I think sales forecast methods that are based upon asking your sales reps “if they commit” …

I call it the age old Hatfield-and-McCoy feud of the business world. It isn’t Coke vs. Pepsi. Or Microsoft vs. Apple. Or Apple vs. Samsung vs. Google (these days). It’s Sales vs. Marketing. Since the dawn of time, Sales is on one side saying “there aren’t enough leads”. And if there is a high volume …

Here at InsightSquared we stress that sales leaders should measure their team using Salesforce.com data, but it’s important to understand why you are tracking these metrics. You then need to determine whether your metrics effectively meet their purpose. Trish Bertuzzi, President and Chief Strategist of The Bridge Group, Inc., brought up a powerful point in a recent …