Many managed services providers (MSPs) are small and medium-sized (SMBs) businesses, too, searching for the most effective ways to market and sell. And best practices in sales can make a big difference. But are you putting the focus on the right practices?

A company with a name like Salesforce.com (CRM) ought to know. Recently, that company's EVP Brian Millham offered his own insights in a blog post on three simple ways to improve sales.

"Every sales rep will tell you they spend way too much effort and time on administrative work, on doing research about the customers and the contacts that they’re selling to," Millham said. "This is only amping up as the information that’s in the public domain is constantly increasing."

Millham offers the following three ways for SMBs to increase sales through simple strategy considerations:

Sell more by putting all customer information in one place

"Deliver a complete view of your customer in a single source," he said. "You’ve got to sell more effectively with shared customer insights. It's essential that you provide solutions to your salespeople that aggregate this information, that every touch point with your customer your prospects is captured within a single system."

Collaborate to improve sales productivity

Millham said collaboration can bring effectiveness and efficiency to sales teams and organizations in general by expanding the expertise level available to help with the sales cycle.

"Now, I can bring in a pricing guru on a tough pricing negotiation, or competitive and product people when it gets complex in a sales process," he said. "You should collaborate across your entire organization to bring those people into your sales process. "

Don't stop there, he pointed out. Continue to collaborate by exchanging proposals or presentations with other employees to gain valuable input from experts and others in the same field.

Leverage analytics to gain insight

Take analytics to the next level to gain valuable customer insight and make as much information available via mobile devices as possible, Milham said.

"Analytics is where I live and breathe. It helps me make smarter decisions about where I should be taking the business," he said. "It allows me to predict where we should be taking the business, investments that we should be making going forward. It’s not just looking backwards. All this information needs to be at your fingertips."