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This report from Cranfield’s KAM and Strategic… 

When companies embark on a digital transformation journey, they undertake a challenging quest for new business models, as they seek to leverage digital innovations to generate value for their customers and to differentiate from their competition. SAP’s Digital Elite Programme enables its salespeople to pitch a digital journey that is a perfect fit for their customers. The digital revolution is… 

Alliances between organisations can be marriages made in heaven, or they can go horribly wrong…. When organisations are first formed, whether in garages in Silicon Valley or back bedrooms in Bangalore, the original founders use the first-generation sales model to grow the business. That is, they “sell to” people. They sell to fellow enthusiasts to convince them to join the… 

As part of a wider professionalisation of the sales function, forward-looking companies are discovering the benefits of sales education as a way to equip their people to thrive in today’s complex and challenging business environment. Today’s business landscape is challenging in multiple ways: it’s super competitive; technology is forcing us to deal with change and adapt our go-to-market models at… 

This is the first of a series of articles in which the authors explore customer value and differentiation. In this article Dr Simon Kelly and Dr Paul Johnston consider the importance of customer value and its criticality in building effective value propositions. They draw together their experience as marketing and sales practitioners, their recent academic and commercial research, and their… 

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… 

Sales acceleration consultancy Durhamlane announced a new apprenticeship programme focused on improving sales skills on 7 March. Presented in partnership with the APS, the programme is aimed at both levy and non-levy paying organisations and will consist of blended training and coaching that can be delivered remotely over 18 months. “Our founding mission was to raise the bar of the… 

Former head of sales at Royal Mail, Graham Davis has been elected the new chair of the Association of Professional Sales’ executive board, the Association announced on 4 March. “I’m very excited to be working with the APS on the next phase of our growth as we steer the industry towards professional chartered status,” he tells the Journal. Davis was… 

It’s easy to make schoolboy errors when you start selling, but ten-year-old Joe Beales is already well on the way to mastering telephone sales, thanks to his dad Kevin, the founder of Newcastle based start-up, Refract, a sales coaching platform. Beales junior has become an internet sensation – with approaching 100,000 views on LinkedIn – after his dad posted a… 

A recent paper from consultants McKinsey & Co suggest that forward-looking sales leaders can use analytics to enhance performance management by using data to directly link talent management to increased financial value. Authors Eric Buesing, Alexander DiLeonardo, Maria Valdivieso De Uster and Ben Vonwiller suggest companies can apply similar techniques used to calculate long-term customer value to measuring the value… 

Shame and stigma surrounding sales is a key contributor to poor UK productivity, according to a poll conducted by Censuswide. Nearly a third (31.1%) of UK managers believe that “sales shame” is negatively impacting their business growth, the survey of 1,000 managers found. In addition, more than a quarter (27%) of managers also believe that this sales shame is holding… 

The Journal is proud to be part of an increasingly professional global sales community. Here at the International Journal of Sales Transformation we are celebrating our fifth year of publishing. Over the time since we launched back in 2015, we have been able to chart a quite noticeable upturn in the professionalism of the sales community both here in the… 

The surprising thing I learnt from giving a 20-minute nonsense presentation to a well-known tech company. The greatest thing I ever wrote, something I’ve jokingly referred to as my magnum opus, was a 20-minute lecture on innovation for the executive team of a major US corporation. As they do not come out all that well in this story, I won’t… 

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… 

In this series of articles we look at some of the most popular sales methodologies. What’s the difference between a methodology and a process? In sales, the methodology is the application of general – possibly universal – principles to the way we approach a component of the sales cycle albeit that it may also be contextual. A process, in contrast,… 

Membrain’s Content Hub claims to solve the problem of salespeople having difficulty finding the right type of content when they need it, or worse, using outdated content stored on their desktops. It also addresses the issue of marketing not knowing which content is being used, and what is most effective in increasing sales effectiveness. In contrast to most sales enablement… 

Decision-makers now tend to view the IT department as a supportive enabler of technology purchases, rather than the “roadblock” it was seen as previously – that’s according to a survey of how technology attitudes are changing in large organisations in the US and UK. Vanson Bourne, a UK-based market research organisation specialising in enterprise technology trends, unveiled its third annual… 

Leeds Trinity University recently announced a level 6 Degree Apprenticeship in Business-to-Business (B2B) Sales. The first programme began on 8 October 2018 with 25 apprentices. Developed in partnership with global sales business school Consalia, the three-year programme combines university study alongside paid work to teach the skills, knowledge and behaviours for individuals to become effective B2B sales professionals. The programme,… 

Consultancy firm McKinsey is advocating using advanced analytics and machine learning to help institutions combat conduct risk – for example, in sales environments – as part of a more comprehensive and cost-effective solution. The approach would help “connect the dots” across individual and team activities by integrating customer and other data. The consultants argue that connections are often hidden in… 

The Association of Professional Sales launched its North West England branch at an event in Manchester on 14 November. Hosted by telecoms giant Vodafone at its Wythenshawe offices, the launch saw digital sales strategist and award-winning technology entrepreneur Warren Knight present a keynote address on the theme of social selling in the digital age. He explained a three-step process to…