Information Builders – “Stagnated growth in an industry that has evolved beyond their leadership capabilities.”

Pros

Great internal support and communication. Most product managers seem genuinely interested in making sure sales branches are successful in the field. If you are a pre-sales person and you have proven yourself, you can stay on board forever (literally). Will give you time to ramp up if you are a rep, but not much.

Cons

Where to start? Sales management consists of people that stumbled up through the ranks with no real management experience or training. Unprofessional, outdated, and useless sales tactics (i.e. "you know, the price goes up if you don't buy at the end of the quarter"). Severe lack of inside sales support for the account executives.

SE ranks consist of many professional people, but they are not all sales-savvy. As in, putting examples in demos within business terms. Focus on what the customer NEEDS to solve their business problems, not all the bells and whistles. SEs are compensated in the old Communist model: if the sales branch does well, you get bonus. If not, no bonus.

After 34 years in business, nobody in the marketplace knows who Information Builders is from a brand perspective. This lack of brand recognition and zero inside sales support makes it extremely difficult to build a book of business.

Advice to Senior Management

Let the AEs do what they do best: sell in person by going on sales calls, not spending hours on the phone. Split that effort with inside sales, it's a no brainer.

Comp Sales Engineers in line with the deals THEY help close via demo and pursuit. Stop with the shared revenue model, it's from 1982.

Build a REAL channels strategy and let your partners sell the SMB market for you. Concentrate on high end customers. Develop a real consulting partner strategy like all the big guys.

Provide real mentoring to your sales reps, especially those that enter in from the outside or from other ranks within the company.

Fire your marketing team. Nobody knows who you are. Hire an outside firm and recast yourself in a different light.

Gerry, become Chairman of the Board and bring in a real CEO. Your company will not grow while you are in control.