Show Me the Money, But the Right Money Please! Part 2: What is My Sales Force Doing?

Clifford Hall, Managing Director Sicco Tans, Senior Director Troy Temple, Senior Director

Service / Industry: Commercial Excellence

In Part I of our three part series, we discussed how understanding cost to serve as well as creating transparency around margins and the market are foundational. This informs new product development, pricing, selling process (the “company way”), and sales organization structure to create an effective commercial strategy that drives profitable growth.

In Part II of our three part series, we examine how the sales force is sized, structured, and deployed to uncover and capture profitable growth opportunities. When looking at the overall performance of the sales organization, the most obvious metrics measure how much the organization costs relative to the revenue, revenue growth, and margin that it brings in. The most telling metric is margin when using a cost to serve driven net margin as discussed in Part I of this series. Whether the overall selling cost is too high relative to returns or could simply be better allocated to a more efficient sales model, understanding the true returns on sales effort by channel enables decisions that improves the ability of the sales organization to deliver more profitable growth.

Click here to read the full article

Click here to read Part I: Where is the Money?

Authors

Clifford Hall

Clifford Hall is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Private Equity Performance Improvement Group in New York. He also leads the Commercial Excellence service line in the U.S. Mr. Hall brings more than 25 years of experience in a range of management, board advisory, operational, and functional roles in the Americas, Europe and Asia. As a mentor, he has successfully coached board of directors, portfolio company management professionals and their teams to measurably impact financial performance.

Sicco Tans

Sicco Tans is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Private Equity Performance Improvement group in New York and serves on engagements as part of the Commercial Excellence service line. He specializes in revenue and margin management, as well as operational improvement for private equity portfolio companies.

Troy Temple

Troy Temple is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement in Chicago. He specializes in identifying and implementing solutions to improve marketing and sales force effectiveness for PE portfolio companies.