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The strategic implications of trust building in B2B client relationships and the way towards enhancing them to create mutual economic value. Abstract There is a noticeable lack of clarity around the construct of trust in the business to business (B2B) context. The thesis on which this article is based considers how trust building antecedents operate dynamically within a B2B relationship,…
If we expect our customers to trust us, we need to develop both an internal and an external culture of trust. Trust is an essential foundational element in any sales environment, and it can (and must) take many forms. Perhaps the most obvious manifestation lies in the relationship between the salesperson (and the vendor they represent) and the customer’s decision-making…
Sales ethics is essential in the new normal. Good business strategy Many companies, even entire industries, struggle to remain open during this ongoing period of challenging economic uncertainty. Business models that were shifting prior to the pandemic, such as the move from instore shopping to e-commerce, have accelerated because of the pandemic. Businesses are adjusting strategies to stay ahead of…
Like any change-management programme, effective sales enablement is not rocket science but remains challenging to deliver. I am constantly amazed by the poor understanding of enablement in the go-to-market space. Many overcomplicate it; others oversimplify and dismiss its value. I recently delivered a webinar with the Sales Enablement Society, titled “The Only Enablement Operating Model You’ll Ever Need.” In that…
“When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become a wiser and more inclusive and a better organisation” – Pat Wadors, head of HR at LinkedIn. At SAP, we have set ourselves a target of achieving 10% of young talent in our workforce in South East Asia (SEA) by 2023. This is a two-fold increase from…
How businesses must adapt to the new world of virtual selling. When the Coronavirus pandemic swept across the world in 2020, it is safe to say that all industries were dramatically disrupted and forced to reassess their operations and ways of working. However, the sales industry was one of the business sectors that was significantly turned on its head by…
Q: What do you see as the “new sales normal” emerging post-Covid? What will be different from before over the longer term? Mark Davies: A few things, all of which were trends that were occurring anyway (the Covid-forced recession has just accelerated these trends). Firstly, the trend whereby customers buy via digital channels will intensify. This is because customers know…
As tech companies move to digitize the front office, digital start-ups have been flooded with cash in recent years, as they search for a way to use historical data such as emails and customer call logs to help average salespeople emulate the best. The following passages (in double quotes) taken from a recent story in Fortune magazine ask whether AI…
A Harvard Business School professor’s insights into the science of sales. In this interview with Deirdre Coleman, Frank Cespedes, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, dispels the myths surrounding technology’s impact on the future of sales and why the need to rethink sales also means rethinking sales leadership. He considers the social and financial impact of sales productivity, and stresses…
When your competitors are floating in a sea of sameness you need to make sure you are waving not drowning. In the second of a series of articles in which Dr Simon Kelly and Dr Paul Johnston explore customer value and differentiation, they are joined by co-author Stacey Danheiser to ask: are you selling in a sea of sameness? In…
In sales, acquiring new business and expanding existing relationships is not the same thing – in which case, why do so many companies have the same conversations with prospects as they do with customers? Over the past two years we have undertaken new, original research focused on existing customer conversations. After a decade of hype surrounding the provocative selling approach,…
There is a general recognition – backed by the latest research from CSO Insights and others – that sales organisations that have adopted a structured approach to selling consistently and often dramatically outperform their less-effective competitors. One of the key foundations of a structured approach to selling involves the adoption of an appropriate sales methodology. You might think of these…
What is the “Fourth Value Conversation”? We asked Tim Riesterer, author of The Three Value Conversations. Q: What is the “Fourth Value Conversation” and why is there a need for it now? We’re calling it “Expand Value”. It’s that part of the customer conversation lifecycle where you’re looking to ensure more renewals, communicate price increases and generate upsells and cross-sells…
As the business world is increasingly disrupted by digital, sales enablement is coming of age. Is this relatively new discipline the key to competitive success for sales organisations? A variety of sales enablement hot topics were on the agenda at Miller Heiman’s 2018 Sales Enablement Summit at the Nobu Hotel in London on 8 November. Not least was the fact…
Consalia graduates and keynote speakers came together to discuss strategies to thrive in today’s disruptive business environment. As the business environment becomes ever more uncertain, with constantly accelerating change and increasing market disruption, both organisations and individuals need to become more resilient. But what kind of toll does this disruption take and how can we become more resilient? These were…
As we explore how to build a KAM programme, we need to consider strategy – customer by customer. In the first article of this series inspired and adapted from our book Implementing KAM, we explored the reasons why KAM is becoming critical for selling organisations and the customers they serve, why a shift towards a customer-centric approach is critical, and…
Bob Apollo on Building Scalable Businesses Account-based marketing (ABM), along with its all-embracing cousin “account-based everything”, have been touted by its promoters as a miracle cure capable of halting the precipitate decline in conventional marketing effectiveness – and derided by cynical detractors as just another over-hyped trend. As with most new(ish) trends, the reality is probably somewhere in between. The…
