* their business plans and strategies
* their key people
* their challenges
* their competitors, and
* their partnership and buying processes.

Without this knowledge it is really quite difficult to build solutions to customers needs and to provide the proactive approach that many customers want. It is not just the buyers of complex product and service packages that want this type of relationship: even hardnosed buyers of price sensitive products understand that there is value in the right type of seller/buyer relationship.

To build relationships and to develop the understanding that will yield long term business benefits takes a significant amount of time and effort. Every sales manager knows that this is a good investment of sales time, and in the current economic environment it is even more important. So why is it that less than 20% of salespeople's time is spent on customer facing activities?

This horrifying statistic comes from SiriusDecisions in the United States. Of course it is not that extreme here is it? It may not be but salespeople in the United Kingdom do suffer from traits that indicate a lack of customer knowledge and understanding (Source DDI Global Sales Perceptions Report) which means they are probably not spending enough time on customer facing work.

Let us assume that this "less than 20%" figure is wrong, and that sales people spend double that amount on customer facing activities. If one can reduce the non customer facing work to one day a week the size the sales force is doubled at no extra cost.

So the first thing that directors can do to increase sales productivity is to liberate their sales people from inward looking activities.