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Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way (Hardcover)

by Michael Webb (Primary Contributor), Tom Gorman (Collaborator)
Key Phrases: sales process map, sales process improvement, customer value maps, Six Sigma, Black Belts, Voice of the Customer (more...)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

Review
“Sales and marketing are new frontiers for Six Sigma and Michael’s book provides practical insights for any organization that is considering how to connect their continuous improvement efforts with top line growth and customer satisfaction."—John Biedry, Senior Vice President Continuous Improvement, ServiceMaster
 
 


"The name of the game is not to design the sales process around ourselves, but to create customer value. Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way is relevant to all executives who are looking to deliver maximum results internally and externally.”
—Gregory T. Deininger, V.P. National Accounts, Marriott


"It isn't often that I can recommend a Six Sigma book because reducing defects tends to be product-focused and internally-oriented. This book is not only different but better than any other Six Sigma book I've ever seen because it actually shows how to use it to increase the value of your relationships and
experiences with your customers. This is the way Six Sigma should be done."
—Paul Greenberg, author of CRM at the Speed of Light


Product Description
Quality management. Process mapping. Speed to production. In the past 50 years, a rigorous, measurement-based methodology called Six Sigma has brought production management to previously unimaginable levels of success and sophistication. Top corporations such as Motorola and GE have built their reputations, products, and revenues using this approach. Indeed, Six Sigma has found widespread application in every significant industry and business—except marketing and sales. 
 
In Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way, sales and quality guru Michael Webb shows how to blend marketing and sales efforts with the cutting-edge methods of Six Sigma to boost their bottom lines. With Webb’s book as a guide, readers learn to engineer rapid routes to customer value, accurately predict future revenue, and ensure return on investment for their projects. 
 
In Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way, you will:
* Find out why "the usual fixes" for sales problems don't work
* Meet executives who have used Six Sigma to imrpove marketing and sales results
* See the pitfalls that await the unwary when applying process improvement in sales
* Learn how to introduce Six Sigma to sales and marketing professionals
* Discover through examples and cases how to manage sales as a process
 
Webb walks readers through several Six Sigma sales and marketing projects from start to finish, highlighting the tools, decisions, and results that made them successful. He shows the practical methods managers use to translate process improvement principles to the human world of selling and marketing.
 
With his dual background in sales and marketing management and in quality improvement, Webb speaks clearly to readers in both disciplines. This makes Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way the indispensible guide for sales and marketing professionals who want to excel in today's business environment, and for quality improvement experts who want to help them.
 


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Product Details
Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sales process map, sales process improvement, customer value maps, pricing page, home page views, selling easier, rolled throughput yield, key input variables, value stream map, formulation chemists, visitor problems, cause diagram, usual fixes, value mapping, analyze phase, improve phase, sales copy, close ratio, sales problems, qualification criteria
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Six Sigma, Black Belts, Voice of the Customer, Sales Process That Works, Standard Register, The Crisis, Quadrant Homes, Save Desk, Green Belts, Jon Theuerkauf, More Info, Jeff Watts, Bob Crescenzi, Characteristic Qualification Issue, Establish Specific Need, Lumber Products, One Sigma, Steve Burnett, United States, American Home Shield, Jack Welch, Sheila Mello, Two Sigma
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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A must reading for sales & marketing professionals, January 11, 2007
By F. Muna (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A few books were recently published which introduced the concept of six sigma to improving sales and marketing. At first I was skeptical about applying six sigma principles to these particular business functions. I, too, suspected that it is probably the latest fashion, the latest flavor of the month, but after reading this book I believe that some of the six sigma tools can indeed be usefully applied to marketing and sales processes.

The author, a black belt practitioner, argues that both sales and marketing functions must be examined as processes desperately in need of improvement. He pleads for the two functions to end their traditional "silo" mentality and "us/them" behavior; showing that six sigma tools can bring marketing and salespeople together and enable them to collaborate as one team.

Mr. Webb urges the use of the five Six Sigma steps (DMAIC), along with tools such as process maps, process measurement charts, fishbone diagrams, SIPOC diagrams, and so on--all of which help in finding (marketing), winning (sales), and keeping (customer service) existing and new customers. According to the author's website, process improvement techniques can also greatly alleviate some of the following typical problems facing marketing and sales:

- Developing and launching products that are not successful in the market because they fail to address real customer needs.
- Advertising and "brand awareness" campaigns that create no measurable customer response.
- Marketing campaigns and trade shows that generate large numbers of "leads" that do not get followed up by salespeople, and are not qualified prospects in any case.
- Salespeople chasing "anything that moves" in their territory, thus spending time selling to the wrong prospects.
- Proposal-generating activities that do not get customers to buy.
- Servicing repetitive customer complaints that could be eliminated if the product were improved, yet that information never makes its way into the requirements for new products. (Source: [...]).

There are two minor criticisms of the book: First, it tends to be too lengthy and repetitive, in fact it probably will not lose any of its main themes or messages if it is condensed to around 200 pages.
Second, most of the case studies cited in the book come from smaller companies. Although the cover of the book mentions that the author worked with large international companies such as American Express, 3M, and Marriott, the only six sigma case study from an international organization came from HSBC USA, whose managing director (a former GE executive) led the six sigma efforts at this bank.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST read for not only Marketing/Sales/QA managers, but for all senior executives and MBA students., September 11, 2006
Most CEOs/COOs/CFOs would agree:

1. Marketing/Sales is both an art and a black box, or even a black hole as it seems to be a continuous cash guzzler.

2. Sometimes CEOs feel they are captives to the Sales VP because even though they are not happy with their sales performance, firing and replacing them with new ones is not a sure win.

3. Marketing campaigns are like shooting in the dark. If you don't shoot, you will not catch anything. But if you keep shooting in the dark, pretty soon the bullets will run out. Most CEOs feel their Marketing VPs are "addicted" to all those fancy marketing programs without assured ROI.

4. VP/Marketing and VP/Sales are like a divorced couple. The best way to pacify them is to keep them separate forever. But how can CEOs afford to do that?

Systems Thinking Guru Russell Ackoff once said that the System cannot detect its own problem and it must be from a high order system level. Marketing and Sales VPs cannot solve their own dilemmas and problems, it requires the CEO/COO/CFO in conjunction
with other functional VPs to work together in a systemic way.

However, among all the functional disciplines, Marketing and Sales are the two most mysterious and hard to understand arenas for the whole executive team. "Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way" is the first book ever that not only presents the real CORE of the respective Marketing and Sales function in an easy to understand system way, it also reconnects Marketing/Sales function with the rest of the business in a systemic manner. The introduction of "Customer Value Mapping" in the whole Marketing/Sales process is truly a remarkable contribution by the author, Michael Webb. I personally first saw that idea on Webb's business website 18 months ago and applied it to the company I worked for and realized an unbelievably rewarding result.

A side benefit of reading the book is that with Webb's superior
writing style people can easily absorb the whole idea of Six Sigma and Lean Management without going through all the terminology and jargon commonly found in other books on Six Sigma. This is a very important feature of the book as its main appeal should be for all corporate executives and Marketing/Sales managers, not just QA coaches.

Among over 100 books on Marketing or Sales that I have read since 1990 after founding my own company, this book is definitely on the top. It will also be a great companion book for MBA students to get bridged to the real challenge of the business world and get well trained with a systemic framework that has rich real world success track records, including my own company's fantastic experience.

C.T. WU, Ph.D. in E.E.
www.sohoware.com
Santa Clara, California
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Art and Science of Selling, December 28, 2006
By David M. Lynn (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Traditionally, sales people and sales executives have been suspicious of six sigma and other quality process tools and approaches for several reasons. First, they don't really understand them, at least not well enough to discern what does and doesn't apply to thier world. This means they deal in broad assumptions and symbols. They are left to interpret thier own limited experience or exposure to six sigma thinking and struggle to see how it will help them sell more effectively. Second,they are skeptical, and rightly so, about the ability of many quality or process experts to apply these principles and tools it in a way that works for them and for thier customers. Too often, the projects selected have been focused on "cost" issues or "waste" without getting at the heart of the matter - improving real sales results. Third, underlying all of this is a fear that the art of selling; the social intelligence, and communication/persuasive skills that remain essential to success, will get lost or under-valued. In short,they know that effective selling is both art and science and while they may over emphasize the art, they worry that the art will be over looked or misunderstood by the process experts.

This is the challenge Mike Webb has taken on in writing Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way. Webb is one of the few people who seem to truly understand not only the importance of both art and science in selling, but, more importantly, how they must be integrated for success. His book is the first I have seen that moves beyond the "it works everywhere else, why not in sales and marketing?" attitude toward a true integration of the art and science of selling.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars aligning sales process with customer buying journey = foundation of business model
This book is very well written and devoted entirely to explaining how value to the customer, not company internal processes, should be the foundation of a data driven,... Read more
Published 26 days ago by A. Engelman

3.0 out of 5 stars Serve the Purpose
As a team leader for a diversity and marketing sales project, I was challenge with preparing a powerpoint presentation to our executives that demonstated what the team had... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Alzana Braxton

5.0 out of 5 stars Data-driven Process Improvement
Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way is a great conceptual introduction to Six Sigma.

Six Sigma is most known as a quality control system for reducing manufacturing... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Andrew Everett

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new in this book!
The book could have provided more examples of the practical use in Sales and Marketing. In addition, there should have been more of an alignment between the Six Sigma methodology... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. Non-Fiction

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent understanding of the Sales and Marketing process
This book is a must read for people involved with these processes (or live with the results!). Michael understands the process and pitfalls and can help you improve your... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Karl M. Waldman

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional book for improving results
Whether you call it six-sigma, kaizen, lean or TQM, the concept has had a revolutionary impact in manufacturing, propelling, for example, Toyota to the top. Read more
Published 21 months ago by W. Zangwii

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for CEOs Tired of Same Old Sales Excuses
This book tackles the central marketing problem of our time ....too many suspects, and an ever dwindling number of qualified prospects. Mr. Read more
Published 23 months ago by R. Ferguson

4.0 out of 5 stars It's a PE Book
It's Good to me, I work for jnj of china. it helps and leads me do the project is well
Published 23 months ago by Pangbo

5.0 out of 5 stars Merging Six Sigma with Sales & Marketing
Michael Webb has done a fantastic job with merging the six sigma methodology with the sales & marketing disciplines. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Darryl K. Mayo

5.0 out of 5 stars Sales & Marketing the Six Sigma Way
I found this book invaluable. As a brand marketing consultant I face a barrage of misguided engineers and production minded individual who deam marketing as puffery. Read more
Published on April 2, 2007 by Kenneth Dodd

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