Sales management as we know it has changed. The current economic situation has sales people and sales management doing extraordinary things in these challenging times that are often unnatural. It is time to take control of your selling environment before someone else is asked to. Companies are looking for profitability over growth which often means they require fewer sales people to get the same or better result. They are re-evaluating their priorities and forcing sales management to be accountable and do more with less. They are looking to put a structure in place that has the highest likelihood to prosper in this difficult sales climate. So, what can your company do to ensure it will stay relevant? Embrace Structure in the Sales Function Show your employees that you are in tune with the changing times and are willing to put structure around sales. A sales structure is not all that different from the ones you probably have in place for your factories, warehouses, and other functions of your business. Make sure your employees are clear on their roles within the structure. Here are some suggestions for instituting a successful sales structure: Put in a Sales Accountability System Hold sales management to clear expectations on not only the numbers, but also on building a quality team. Use a systematic approach to track both lagging and leading indicators as well as role-based skills or competencies within your sales team. Reduce Wasted Effort With the proper system in place, your sales managers will not be hunting for data or spending countless hours analyzing team performance. Analysts’ statistics show that having an accountability system in place reduces sales management administration overhead by over 30 percent. Sales managers should also focus on where they can add value by using those on the team who are most coachable. If you have built a strong team, your sales managers should not have to be on every call. Consider the Alternative We in sales all have a responsibility to shape our future, drive revenue and profitability. Sales management specifically has the extra task of managing morale and coaching, while holding salespeople accountable. Status quo never works; the hammer only works for so long and the alternative to putting in structure is to do nothing. Without a structured process, you will not be able to explain who is strong and who is weak, and what you are doing about it to better the team. The trends of the selling marketplace have shifted towards a more structured and accountable environment. If your company genuinely lives and breathes these values it will be in a position to thrive today and in the future.

Back to school time is upon us, but it's not just students who will soon be facing homework. Thanks to Thursday's announcement that Microsoft is cutting the price of its high-end Xbox 360 Elite video game console from $399 to $299 -- matching that of Sony's new PlayStation 3 Slim -- consumers will have to study up on which console now better fits their affordable entertainment needs in a down economy.

Have you ever filled out an application form that was so long and complicated as to be almost unintelligible? Or one that asked for your date of birth in one place and your age in another, and then required you to sign your name over and over again (and also print it out each time)?

If you're a car dealer in the "cash for clunkers" program, you've seen something similar recently in the ten-page application for reimbursement. In fact, many dealers dropped out of the program prematurely because the paperwork was so onerous that it caused a huge backlog in reimbursements, which caused the dealerships to "front" the money for the government.

Why do managers (and government officials) perpetuate these complex, time-consuming, and downright annoying processes? And would it make a difference if they were changed? Here's a quick example of what can happen when managers don't accept complexity.

When Paul van de Geijn was the CEO of Zurich's Global Life Insurance business, he brought his European country managers together for a conference in Barcelona. At the meeting he gave each of them five minutes to fill out the application form for the simplest type of life insurance for his or her country. When nobody was able to fill out the form in the allotted time, van de Geijn convinced his team to start a simplification program that they called "Make Life EaZy". In this program, the Zurich managers looked at every aspect of their business from the perspective of how to make it easier for the customer to understand, purchase, and renew life insurance. The results: In the first year, in the participating countries, sales increased by 7%, re-investment rates (buying new products when old ones mature) went up by 24%, and far fewer customers cancelled policies (all astounding numbers in a low-growth, mature business).

Why did simplicity make such a substantial difference for Zurich? Besides making it easier to do business, simplicity also changed the underlying relationship between the company and its customers. When you ask redundant questions, one of the subtle messages to customers is that we don't trust your answers — we need to ask you the same thing several times in different ways so that we can make sure you're being truthful. Similarly, when you create complicated explanations of products, services, and contracts, customers often feel that you aren't being truthful about what's being offered — otherwise the material would be straightforward and easy to understand. In other words, complexity does more than just waste your customers' time — it potentially undermines the relationship.

But herein lies the opportunity. If complexity causes distrust, then simplicity can foster the opposite — a relationship in which customers want to do business not only because it's easy but also because they trust you. So take a fresh look at your customer contact mechanisms. Do they not only make it easy for the customer to do business with you, but do they make the customer want to do business with you? The answer can make all the difference.

What customer contact mechanisms do you employ to achieve simplicity — and foster trust?

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Robert H. Schaffer & Associates, a Stamford, Connecticut consulting firm and the author of the forthcoming book Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done (Harvard Business Press, December, 2009).

The next time somebody tells you Canada has no influence online, you can point them to this news story: The Canadian Privacy Commission issued a report in July critical of Facebook's privacy policy, and as a result, the popular social networking site is changing the way it displays and maintains personal information. One in three Canadians, or 12 million northerners, use Facebook. The commission determined that the company violates Canadian law by keeping personal information about people who have deactivated their accounts on its servers indefinitely. Among the changes Facebook has agreed to implement is a restriction on the access third-party developers will have to personal data (such as date of birth) from members who use their apps. Developers will...

Not happy with the way your sales department is run?  Got an idea that could make it better?  If so, you'll have to sell your idea to your sales manager.  And that's not always easy, because sales managers know all the tricks.  Even so, selling to a sales manager is not impossible, providing you follow this recipe: STEP #1: Keep an open mind. You wouldn't assume that your customers are stupid just because they didn't buy a certain product. Similarly, don't assume that your sales manager is clueless simply because he doesn't agree with you. Give him the benefit of the doubt; he may very well have experience that can help you hone your own ideas. STEP #2. Focus on...

Pity poor Pfizer as it tries to perform a simple operations consolidation between two factories in Venezuela. The government just demanded $17 million in back taxes after auditing the company, and is threatening to seize and nationalize one of its factories in "a few days." Pfizer has offered to sell the plant to Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Revolutionary government.

One simple marketing truth, that people want what they can't have, has been validated by a recent Stanford Business School study. However, the "denial experience" has its limits, the researchers found.

As if Google didn't have enough governmental bodies breathing down its neck, now the company is in trouble in Italy. According to Reuters, the country's antitrust regulatory body is investigating charges by the Italian Federation of Newspaper Editors that Google forces the publications to appear on the Google Italy News site if they also want their sites to be indexed by the web search engine.

Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck staged a semi-religious rant Wednesday in which he appeared to address the ad boycott that has cost him dozens of advertisers, claiming that even if his enemies win, "I will only be stronger for it."

The Ford Focus and the Ford Escape made it into the Top 10 new vehicles purchased under the Cash for Clunkers program. But overall, Asian brands won the most share from the program.