as a sales vet I love to be in front of customers. After the pandemic, I was out for 3-4 days a week again but what Jeff is asking us to do, is 2 more days training, new tools and processes with the result I hardly can go out meeting customers as many sync calls are required too plus the every week feel good meetings. Stop it! On top very limited travel budget.
I am not sure if this is the right way to create more business. Leaders are asked to lead with multi trainings what it means but our sales leadership is managing, micro managing. It feels Jeff lost trust to the sellers in the field. Good luck!
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It's time they canned Impact . Waste of money time and effort. That would be a saving of at least 100m .That saving could be put to more meaningful customer revenue generating activities.
Can meet customers for essential meetings only but told to cut customer coffees and lunches. No travel allowed unless customer related and it is a needed meeting, no meet and greet travel allowed.. Cisco makes billions and they do this? They ki-l the goose that lays the golden egg.
Everyone should read the terms and conditions in the mandatory security presentation contest - it's wild.
The AM's on my Public Sector team have not met face to face with a customer since Covid started 3 years ago
Absolutely not true our sales people are still meeting with customers fairly regularly in enterprise. Maybe depends what org you’re in
Chuck thought if he told sales people to work at home that it would sell billions of WebEx
HaHa - Guess that backfired just like everything else he has done
Why should a sales rep work more than 20 hours a week when their sales manager is useless and working 2 hours a day
More status meetings, more measurements, more mandatory training AND more whip-cracking from your WFH managers is CLEARLY what is needed here.
Take away sales offices, lose the cross selling, lose the partner meetings, lose the partner breakfast where we can influence and educate the partners, lose the place to meet customers and engage in dialogue....do stupid things lose your sales ability....this is a self-fulfilling prophecy
Crazy. But then again look at the clowns sitting in the ELT. Name just one acquisition Centoni made that's brought some sort of return to Cisco. Yet she's allowed to pursue her random shopping spree.
If I told them once, I told them 10 times:
It's "Spinal Tap and Puppet Show" !!!
I agree with post observing this is what you see in a downward spiral. It's what companies that fail to meet competition do: leadership micromanages; the tighter they hold on, the looser their grip on the market.
“Don’t forget to do your Security Superstar training to win the Porsche”
And there lie in the problem at Cisco. Too much time spent having to do all this internal sh-t, and tons more, as opposed to getting on with the actual job.
That’s why my company (competitor) has a “no fly” list of people Cisco. We just won’t hire from there.
Don’t forget to do your Security Superstar training to win the Porsche
I wonder how often the ELT travels ?
i thought Cisco 70% sales are done through partners. There are decent Cisco Partners, but most of Cisco Partners are operating in Nepotism. Cisco partners are big cans of worms themselves, having their own sons, own nephews working on same projects within same company.
The Cisco sales force has been degrading for decades. It's finally reached the point where it isn't even paying for itself. Expect to see cost-savings measures constantly being enacted in the field.
There should be more accountability on front line sales managers. Most work less than 40 hours a week and are unavailable more times than not.
Go check on Cisco Sales folks after they are LR'd. Many will go on to sell real estate or automobiles. Those are the only sales gigs they can get.
Sales are regional within their own territories? That’s minimal
They should cancel CiscoLive too
Most SE cant even troubleshoot a simple network problem.
Sales su-ks. Most TMEs and SEs have zero clue technically. I've interviewed a lot of them and they sure aren't worth what they are making and the numbers prove it. The endless training is pretty stupid though. Now we have trained bricks and still no competent sales leadership.
That’s what you typically see in a downward spiral. They believe micro management will force more activity and closing deals faster. But it just creates busy work and endless sheets, meetings and internal reporting— all while your competitors meet with the prospects and will be more successful due to simply being in front of them.