CAsk Eyal
Eyal Danon is the President and Founder of Ignite Advisory Group, and a world-renowned expert on customer and partner advisory boards.
❓ Question: Dear Eyal, we are experiencing challenges in getting our sales and relationship management teams to follow through with recruiting members for our planned customer advisory board. Any advice on how to motivate them to help?
Answer: We’ve sometimes heard CAB managers suggest offering a financial incentive to sales people to submit their CAB nominees or conduct recruiting activities, but we think this approach sends the wrong message.
As sales professionals are, understandably, busy with generating revenue for their companies, CAB executive sponsors should take the time to educate their sales teams on the strategic importance of CAB programs and what’s “in it” for them. Studies show CAB members purchase more than non-CAB customers.
In addition, we recommend the executive sponsor collect buy-in from executive sales leadership, and both should communicate the strategic value of your CAB program to your account teams; that the program is not a marketing experiment but instead a company-endorsed initiative in which sales participation is needed (and expected) for program success.
Got a CAB management question for Eyal? Email him at eyal.danon@igniteag.com. We could include your question in the next CAB Connection.
