As more companies emphasize revenue growth over cost cutting and reengineering, salespeople will play key roles in corporate strategy. But a recent study of 360 CEOs and senior sales executives by human resource consultants Towers Perrin shows that some sellers might not be up to the task.
Forty percent of those surveyed ranked their sales staff as ineffective due to a lack of motivation and failure to learn about customer needs. More than half of the respondents blamed low morale following mergers for poor performance.
However, half of those surveyed also admitted "product commoditization"-- their goods do the same thing as their competitors' for about the same price --made the task of selling more difficult.
