Redwood City, CA Ð NeXT management, confident that its current sales strategy will continue to be successful, is increasing its domestic sales force by 50 percent. NeXT will increasingly focus its efforts on large-to-jumbo-sized opportunities presented by Fortune 500 companies, the federal government, and higher education. "We've cracked the code. We know how to sell these things now," said Todd Rulon-Miller, NeXT's vice-president of North American sales.
Rulon-Miller and recently named NeXT President Peter van Cuylenburg have engaged in rigorous numerical analyses of the sales effort as part of the quantitative, "hard-numbers" approach that has become one of van Cuylenburg's trademarks since his arrival.
Some results: The sales teams that have focused on a few very large sales opportunities have generated the greatest return on investment, as opposed to efforts targeted at smaller accounts. Also, the sales cycle on large accounts, traditionally thought to be 18 to 24 months, can be whittled to 6 to 12 months, Rulon-Miller said.
Armed with these results and what he feels is a winning product line and marketing message, Rulon-Miller said that NeXT "no longer invests speculatively when we hire reps but plants seeds for substantial, predictable quotas." His sales force will grow this year from between 40 to 45 quota-bearing teams to 60 to 65 by the end of the year. A team includes one sales rep, one systems engineer, and associated support staff.
Narrowing the focus even further, van Cuylenburg has targeted only three major commercial markets Ð legal, health care, and financial services Ð for the bulk of NeXT's demand-creating direct-sales efforts. This leaves responsibility for creating demand in most smaller accounts and most other markets to NeXT's indirect-sales channels. Since NeXT relies on the channel for creating demand, not simply filling orders, it prefers that only strong value-added resellers and dealers carry the product line.
Though NeXT has not announced sales figures for the second quarter, Rulon-Miller said that the new direction is already bearing fruit. "We had a number in North America and exceeded it," he said.