Ingram: Everyone's responsible for sales

Marketing VP pens US opinion piece on one way to revitalise sales

Responsibility for sales in a channel company belongs to everyone working in that company, according to Ingram Micro's North American marketing vice president.

Jennifer Anaya, vice president of marketing in North America at Ingram Micro, opined today on US site Channelnomics that salespeople are sometimes singled out as the most important revenue drivers, when in fact every role is critical to the final result.

"While the tech guys labour over implementation, the support teams ease customer complaints and the back office processes all the paperwork, the sales teams gets all the glory and compensation. What technician doesn't grimace when members of the sales team spend their day golfing?" Anaya wrote.

"[But] consider the job of tech support: when a technician gets a job ticket, they are able to poke around a customer environment. They see what is and is not working, and this is where opportunity lies."

She said VARs should look for ways to revitalise all the different roles within a company to ensure that everyone not only plays his or her part in driving sales, but is rewarded for doing so.

Too many employees tend to think of themselves only as cogs in a machine, she said.

"The truth: sales responsibility belongs to everyone," wrote Anaya. "Your customers interact with many more people at your company than just the sales team."