2025年销售卓越与创新报告

Sales leaders’ secrets to success Introduction This edition of the Sales Excellence and Innovation Report showcases some of the most successful, innovative Based on our interviews with stakeholders from four large enterprises in various industries, each case studysummarizes how the profiled company tackled an issue common to many of today’s sales organizations.You’ll learn about the context, the company’s process, the challenges they faced and how they succeeded. This year’s featured innovations include: Innovation 3 Innovation 4 Innovation 2 Innovation 1 SixthSpark* Retainsthe Buyer-SellerRelationship to SalesforceEmbeds SkillsDevelopment for BroadSilver*Provides ContinuousCoverage With Cisco ImprovesProspecting Innovation 1 Salesforce EmbedsSkills Development Company:Salesforce Industry:Enterprise software Headquarters:San Francisco Employees:72,682 (2024) Context Sales organizations tend to treat skills development as primarily a trainingissue, creating new training programs as needed based on a competencymodel. However, sellers are often resistant to change. In fact, 41% of sellersparticipating in our 2024 Technology’s Impact on Seller Productivity Survey said The problem with a training-based approach is that it overlooks the ongoingneed to motivate sellers and hold them accountable for new behaviors. A better Challenges Mimecast struggled to determine where its enablement function should focus its energies, because the mostcommon approaches to measuring enablement’s impact all fall short:Salesforce set out to address three common barriers that inhibit long-term seller skills development: Insufficient training, coaching andpractice opportunities.Sellers oftenstruggle to recall training and applywhat they were taught in the moment. Seller resistance.Many sellers resistchange because it interrupts theworkflows and tactics that they’ve Conflicting processes and priorities.New behaviors often clash with legacyprocesses. For example, while leadersmay want sellers to ask customers Key Innovation To address these three barriers, Salesforce embeds skills development into several facets of the organization: •Competency models.Salesforce’s competency models usereal, humanized behavior examples to illustrate four differentproficiency levels for each skill (see Figure 1). This helps sellers •Compensation.Salesforce motivates sellers by linking skillsproficiency to compensation, focusing not only on what sellers •Career development.Salesforce clearly delineates the skillsrequired for each role and the “skills stretch” required for eachpromotion. This helps sellers identify a career path based on •Assessments.Salesforce identifies individual sellers’ skillgaps through regular assessments wherein the seller and theirmanager both rate the seller’s proficiency in each key skill. Seller •Integrated learning. Salesforce uses two types of “nudges”to prompt sellers to address skill gaps: –Process-integrated nudges (for example, prompting sellers totake a training session when a specific skill is needed)–Social comparison nudges (for example, highlighting the Impact Sales leaders can drive significant impact on seller quota attainmentwith a well-integrated skills development strategy. An independentGartner study, the 2022 B2B Seller Motivation Survey, found thatwhen sellers can identify forward-looking career opportunities,they’re significantly less demotivated with work and are 50% more “Our commitment to excellence has enabled us to offer unparalleledtransparency to our sales professionals globally. We not only guidethem on the path to success but also provide the necessary support Scott Barghaan, SVP, Global Seller Experience, Salesforce Key Insights Forty-one percent of sellers say they arevery reluctant to changehow they work. Too often,training programs are ineffective at actually changing seller behavior. Salesforce overcame seller resistance, priority conflicts and insufficient application opportunitiesbyembedding skills developmentinto several facets of sellers’ day-to-day experience. Tying desired skills to performance assessments, compensation and career developmentmotivates sellersto adopt new behaviors. Humanized examples in competency models and in-the-moment nudges help sellers understandhow to apply new skills. Take Action With Gartner Support Make seller behaviorchange a core responsibilityof the enablement teamto drive seller action andchange seller behavior at Build a seller competencymodel by assessing thebehaviors, technology andmetrics associated withtop-performing sellers. Embed skills developmentin your organization bydefining high performance,building a competencymodel and learning from Connectwith a Gartner expert to builda personalized plan forupskilling sellers at yourorganization. If you are nota Gartner client, get in touch Alice WalmesleyDirector Analyst Innovation 2 Cisco ImprovesProspecting With Company:Cisco Industry:Networking softwarea