3. Both leaders worry about the impact of COVID-19 on selling capabilities and forecasts. A majority of respondents—52%--express concern about their sales team’s ability to meet or exceed sales quotas during the next 12 months due to continued social distancing, reduced travel, and customer visit restrictions. This anxiety comes despite the fact that both foresee little or no change in the mix of inside sales, outside sales, and sales through channel partners. Sales leaders are more confident about meeting targets than CFOs, but only slightly: 50% of sales executives express concern, compared to 53% of CFOs. 4. Finance and sales leaders have different beliefs about which customers will provide sales growth and about where to invest to support the sales team. The most significant disagreements we found have to do with likely sources of sales growth—i.e., which customers to focus on—and the best investments to make to reach and engage those customers. Sources of revenue growth: Finance leaders believe the richest opportunity for revenue growth comes from increasing sales to existing customers—a share-of-wallet strategy. Thirty-six percent of them believe expansion with existing customer should be top priority, followed by entering new markets (21%) and new products and service offerings (15%). Sales leaders look for pots of gold elsewhere — 29% prioritize new markets, 26% existing customers, 16% enhancing efficiency or sales automation.
Which areas provide the richest opportunity for sales growth?
CSO
CFO
Expanding with existing customers
Expanding with existing customers
28%
29% 26%
36%
Entering new markets
Entering new markets
Enhancing Sales automation
New products or services
21%
29% 16%
15%
Other
Other
Investment in the sales function. Sales and finance leaders have strikingly different priorities for investment in the function. Asked how they would invest a hypothetically doubled sales budget, sales leaders emphasize human factors: expanding the sales force, increasing training for sales reps, and increasing incentive pay. Technology investments (analytics and CRM) lag well behind. CFOs would invest first in data analytics, second in adding reps, and third in training. Increasing incentive pay is the lever they would least like to pull.
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