It’s a big crowd here at the Customer Reference Forum in Berkeley, and as usual there’s a lot of buzz in the air as customer reference professionals have the “aha!” moment of realizing that plenty of others face the same challenges they do.

For me, it’s really striking to see the same pressing questions come up year over year:

• How can I get sales people to nominate their customers?
• How can I meet all these demands when I’m so squeezed for money and headcount?

There are others (How do I get customers to participate in activities? How do I get them to reveal their ROI?), but the sales participation and budget questions really top the list.

There is an answer that consistently delivers results, in the form of greater sales participation and even increased program resources. It’s simple in concept, but like so many things in the business world, not necessarily easy. Ready for it? Deliver demonstrable value to your sales force.

You can break that down into a few steps: Listen carefully to find out just what “value” means to your sales force, refine your program to focus on delivering it, get buy-in from leadership to support the change, and use agreed upon measures to demonstrate your success.

You’re working in a complicated environment, and politics, workload, and corporate inertia obstruct your path. But you can cut through all that if you keep your focus on your clear and simple goal and the steps that get you there.

Whitney Wood, Senior Consultant
whitney.wood@phelongroup.com