“In strategic planning it is important to discuss key performance indicators (KPI). ... The first step to determining your KPI is to understand the difference between lagging and leading indicators. The second step is to define and monitor your business indicators. Lagging and Leading Indicators.”  - May 27, 2014 - Project Times

Both leading and lagging indicators can occur at approximately the same time and there are circumstances where the leading and lagging indicators may not be easily identified. Today we will review definitions, examples and how to recognize the differences. By doing so, we hope to help you improve Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to make better decisions.

 UPDATE:  11-22-2016   In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. Court Judge Amos L. Mazzant III of the Eastern District of Texas barred the U.S. from implementing the new overtime rules, saying the new revision improperly created a salary test for determining which workers fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s so-called “white collar” exemption.  Read the court ruling here.  This puts the following information on a temporary hold. 

On 12/1/16 a new FLSA rule by the Department of Labor will require you to either pay an exempt (salaried) employee an hourly rate along with overtime pay or increase their pay to meet the new threshold limits of $47,476.

Under the proposed rules, the minimum salary threshold would increase from $23,660 per year ($455 per week) to $50,440 ($970 per week) in 2016. The current “highly compensated employee” exemption would increase from $100,000 to $122,148 per year. According to the DOL, as many as five million American workers who are currently exempt could become eligible for overtime protection.

To get a sales team to perform beyond expectations, we focus on these five essentials: 

• Characteristics of a High Performing Sales Team
• Hiring Best Practices – building the best team
• Data Mining – providing the right data
• CRM – the right tool for your organization
• Training - the ongoing need

In the new world of technology where distance is not a factor for production, there is a trend for staff to work remotely. The remote workers can be outsourced from around the world via a crowdworking website such as Amazon's mechanical turk, a low cost solution such as fiverr.com, or a pool of freelancers like Outsource.com.  

Remote Worker:

“ A remote worker is someone who works outside of a traditional office. An employee might work from home, from a coffee shop, or from anywhere that is not a regular office; although depending on the type of job they do, they might find themselves going into an office on occasion (if the company’s hub is geographically close to them)."

Manufacturing and service operations answer different questions and formulate different strategies when it comes to planning and managing the way in which their organizations operate and grow revenue.

Sales-as-a-service (SAAS) is not yet clearly defined and could be considered as software or services (or a combination of both), which provides businesses with “sales capabilities as a service” whereby, businesses can access relevant and crucial sales resources when they need them. For instance, if you are looking for an efficient sales channel or sales team, SAAS software can help you acquire the resources you need to meet your company’s goals.

One of the most common challenges faced by business managers of both established and growing businesses are “how to compensate their sales teams effectively.” Managers need to implement a compensation model that motivates their sales team to land new accounts, while at the same time upselling the existing ones. But, how do you identify the most efficient compensation model to use? And how do you measure performance against the compensation model?  Well, the information given here will answer these and more questions about some of the most efficient sales compensation models to keep a team motivated.

Setting goals is easy, “I will meet my sales goals; I will achieve success in business.” This sound’s great but how will you achieve this (your goals)?  The “how” part is the sales methodology; the strategies you use to achieve your target or goals. Professionals usually refer to sales methodology as the fundamental approach to sales and the terminology used when relating to customers to “close the deal.”  The ‘how’ is usually the most difficult part of a sales process, as it determines whether you succeed or fail in making that sale.

How can you develop a sales methodology to meet your goals? There are different sales methods which have been developed by sales leaders and professionals over many years. You can combine these different sales approaches to developing a sales methodology or use one (single) method.

Sources you can use to develop a sales methodology include books and/or professional training. How you develop a sales methodology will largely depend on your “selling environment,” or your target audience.

Here is a brief summary of sales methodologies
frequently used: