The types of metrics you must examine to determine sales-funnel performance

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May 16, 2012 CONNECT WITH SMARTBRIEF Share | Sign up | Archive | Advertise The Leaderboard  How to find the everyday leaders on your team Scott Edinger writes about how organizations can identify the "reverse leaders" in their ranks. Some individuals exhibit leadership qualities, even if they don't have a formal managerial role. They often are results-oriented and customer-focused, with strong interpersonal skills. Companies that don't cultivate them are missing out on a competitive opportunity, Edinger writes. Harvard Business Review online/HBR Blog Network (5/11)       What leaders can learn from your average burger The best bosses are like tasty burgers, Kevin Eikenberry writes. Like a good leader, a high-quality hamburger is unassuming, versatile and combines available resources -- meat, cheese, bun -- into something that didn't exist before the process started. "The individual parts that make up the hamburger are all important, but it is the whole that matters," Eikenberry writes. KevinEikenberry.com (5/14)       Earn 2X rewards points on shipping costs with The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN. Designed to earn Membership Rewards® points faster: • 3X points on airfare • 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping • 1X points on everything else LEARN MORE AND APPLY Sales Strategies    Why you must consider market potential in sales-force sizing Salespeople need to be put in the right situations to achieve success, so it's important to correctly size your sales force, writes George de los Reyes. By acquiring an understanding of the market potential for your products, you can help to correctly size your sales team. Sales Benchmark Index/Sales Force Effectiveness blog (5/14)       3 types of metrics you must examine to determine sales-funnel performance Successful sales funnels need to be aligned with customers' buying behavior, writes Bob Apollo. To monitor the performance of your funnel, you should go beyond basic metrics such as volume and conversion and consider time-based and quality metrics as well. Inflexion-Point.com (U.K.) (5/15)       Other News Inspire your team to achieve sales greatness Inc. online/The Trademark Advocate blog (5/15)       Sales Forecasting: Turning Data, Analysis and Process into a Realistic View of your Business's Future Sales forecasting is often looked upon as a black art. The wide variety of approaches and strategies used for forecasting does little to dispel that view; approaches vary from business to business and from division to division, and can vary from a sales manager's best guess to a process highly reliant on analytics technology. Daily Data Points    Survey: HR executives play a bigger role in strategy than CFOs do Executives in human resources report spending more time on strategic partnerships in their companies than do CFOs, according to a recent survey. The finding challenges the idea that finance executives play a significant role in shaping corporate strategy, John Boudreau writes. The reasons may include CFOs' need to focus on financial reporting following the economic crisis and HR's closer relationship to core strategy. CFO.com (4/30)       Other News Home inventory reaches a 6-year low Housing Wire (5/15)       Sales, inventories have climbed slowly in recent months Bloomberg Businessweek (5/15)       Study predicts next 5 years will bring surge in local social-ad spending Street Fight (5/15)       Learn How to Cut HR Costs Without Cutting Production Entrepreneurial execs know that they need to follow the rules, but they may not realize which decisions will lead to the two vital components that help keep HR costs low. The following paper focuses on minimizing human capital expenses in four key areas. Download the white paper, An Executive’s Guide to Cutting HR Costs to learn more. On the Road  Crowdsourced websites help travelers find power outlets Travelers hunting for power outlets in airports have two handy resources in AirPower Wiki and AirportPlugs.com, both of which are crowdsourced websites that are aiming to build maps of the locations of outlets at airports in the U.S. and around the world. Both sites invite passengers to upload exact information about the location of an outlet and in the case of the latter site to provide photos. APEX Editor's Blog (5/11)       Other News Airlines look at creative cabin layouts for better sleep The Wall Street Journal (5/9)       App Update    The best iPhone apps for managing your multitude of tasks A number of iPhone applications -- including Orchestra, Wunderlist and ToodleDo -- can help you to create and manage to-do lists. Some apps, such as Orchestra, are free; others, such as ToodleDo, are available for a few dollars. Lifehack.org (5/15)       Better Sales Training Laugh more, sell more. RealBiz Shorts are funny, short videos from Second City Communications designed to enhance your sales training with a hilarious take on critical, real-life challenges facing organizations and sales reps. The first few laughs are on us, so why not check out a preview? Featured Content    Have You Prepped for Disaster? Courtney Rubin How to Boost Your Search Ranking with User Reviews Rae Hoffman-Dolan 4 Secret Methods to Raising Money Mike Michalowicz What You Can Learn From Zynga's Cool Company Culture Kate Freeman Workplace Flexibility: 3 Ways to Keep Employees Happy Dan Schawbel Making Small Talk  Turns out the Easter Island statues have bodies after all The famous head statues on Easter Island have much larger bodies than many might realize, according to photos from a recent excavation. Researchers have also uncovered some new clues that suggest how the statues were put into place. Yahoo!/The Sideshow blog (5/15)       Position Title Company Name Location Director of Sales- Logistics ChemLogix Greater Philadelphia Area , PA Senior Director of Business Development & Conventions ASCP Alexandria, VA Click here to view more job listings. SmartQuote  [I]f you really want to turbo boost your sales, you must first win the hearts and minds of your sales force." --Matthew Swyers, founder of The Trademark Company, writing at Inc. online's The Trademark Advocate blog       SmartBrief on Sales Partners SmartBrief delivers need-to-know news in over 100 targeted email newsletters to over 3 million readers. All our industry briefings are FREE and open to everyone—sign up today! 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