SFA White Papers

ROI as a Sales Tool: Abstract

This is one of Mr. Petersen's most sought after white papers.  It discusses the use of ROI as a sales tool.  The white paper describes the creation and definition of a sales process and demonstrates the need to link the sales process with the prospect?s buy process.

Sales as a Value Chain Perspective: Abstract

This is an 18 page white paper written in the mid 1990s that addresses SFA from a Value Chain perspective.  This was written before the CRM concept became well known.  The white paper discusses the use of sales automation as a vehicle for delivering value to customers.  It was written in an era that emphasized cost reduction as the vehicle to justify SFA.

Sales Quality: Abstract

This is a critical look at the role of quality as used in the sales process.  This white paper is unique in its content and is one of the most sought after documents on this topic.  The white paper is 40 pages in length and provides a number of examples of how the principles have been successfully applied.

Assessing the Drivers of Sales Performance

Many organizations manage business development in a context of cost containment without consciously considering the implications.   Metrics such as sales cost per dollar revenue are used for budgeting purposes with the intention of maintaining bottom-line profitability.  This approach reflects a perspective of managing by trend or history with the assumption that history is a good approximation of the future.  These practices are the result of having little insight as to what actions actually drive results; with this void in insight, organizations are forced to use history as the benchmark even though it offers very little opportunity to truly manage resources.  This white paper develops the argument that the method for breaking this pattern is to start with a limited number of macro drivers of performance and make an assessment of their relative importance or impact.  This process will lead the organization toward establishing metrics that will reveal true cause and effect relationships and thereby enable optimization of these resources.  This could be the most important step an organization takes to achieving long-term profitability.

Linking Sales Performance & Technology to Create Competitive Advantage

This document is positioned as an executive briefing because when it was released (1993) it sold for $1000.  It is a 20 page document that lays out the rationale and foundations for sales force automation.  It was a seminal piece of research that is equally valuable and valid today.

Smart Buying Versus Effective Selling: Anatomy of the Complex Sale

This white paper makes the argument that the sales person’s role is to facilitate the buy process and thereby improve the cycle time to close and improve the probability for a win.  These are laudable qualities unto themselves but this white paper will also make the case that understanding and rallying around the buy cycle will also help to align marketing and sales effort by better equipping the sales person to facilitate the buy process.  The result should be an increased understanding of what the true value add is for the organization and how effective current marketing and sales programs are in terms of influencing customer buying behaviors.  These are the keys to maximizing the productivity of sales and marketing and achieving long-term profitability.

Selecting a SFA Vendor

This white paper discusses the selection of sales force automation software but is generally applicable to CRM.  The content is unique in that it discusses the role that vendor management plays in the creation of a positive relationship during implementation and beyond.  Since this white paper does not deal with technology per se, it is as valid today as the day it was written.