Workbooks Online Provides Sales and Marketing Advisories for Small and Mid-Size Businesses

USA (SANEPR.com) July 2, 2009 -- Workbooks Online (http://www.workbooks.com) is launching a series of free advisories for business leaders in small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) designed to help them drive improvements in sales and marketing execution. The “Business Perspectives” series aims to stimulate thought and offer advice on best practice, covering some of the key operational elements of building and running effective sales and marketing functions.

John Cheney, CEO at Workbooks Online, comments: “For most SMEs, sales and marketing activity consumes the lion’s share of operational cost. Building and running a sales team can rapidly consume cash. Sales people will be among the best paid in your organisation and will make the most calls upon other resources. Tracking and managing their activity can be challenging, especially when they’re field based. Your business needs them, but good ones are hard to come by; even in an economic downturn.

“How many marketing managers are able to determine that Tradeshow A was a better investment than Campaign B, or Online Media C? Is there clarity on what constitutes success – The most leads? The most qualified opportunities? The most business closed?

It stands to reason that if sales and marketing account for the largest part of operational budget, businesses should be keen to optimise the performance of these functions.”

Over the next three months, Workbooks Online will deliver a series of advisories in a variety of formats and covering the following topics:

- Sales qualification
o Implementing a manageable and consistent qualification methodology
o How to give sales opportunities a MEDICAL
o Coaching sales teams for excellence

- Pipeline management and the importance of knowing your own sales cycle
o The 3 daily key indicators in pipeline management
o Avoiding a pipeline gap

- Implementing an appropriate forecasting structure
- Maximising marketing investments
o Marketing against a pipeline plan
o Tracking return on marketing investments

- Selling value to maximise retained margin
o Alignment with your customer’s business agenda
o Understanding and articulating your differentiation
o 3 questions that will improve your execution in every deal

- Maximising customer value
o Engaging meaningfully with your customers – and not just at renewal time
o Delivering relevant offers and promotions as part of cross-sell and up-sell campaigns
o Managing and best-utilising customer references

The first advisory, The Importance of Sales Qualification, is available from Workbooks Online by visiting www.workbooks.com/businessperspectives or by emailing businessperspectives@workbooks.com. The second, “Mind the Gap”: Pipeline Management, is also available this month


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About Workbooks Online
Workbooks Online delivers an integrated suite of easy-to-use business applications designed specifically for small businesses and mid-size organisations to run their business. Workbooks hosted CRM and front-office accounting applications comprehensively support the business lifecycle, including sales, marketing, sales order management, invoicing, customer service, purchasing and supplier management. Workbooks CRM and Workbooks Business help organisations to improve the performance of their business; with real-time visibility of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). They help to increase productivity through efficiency gains and provide the framework to better manage business risk. Workbooks Online applications are built on the WorkbooksOne™ technology platform as a pre-integrated suite of applications. This removes the traditional requirement for small and mid-size businesses to select, purchase, implement, integrate and manage separate CRM and back-office software and associated hardware; in contrast Workbooks Online is ready for use as soon as organisations subscribe - and starts to deliver value immediately.
http://www.workbooks.com