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How and why we ask questions is important. The twins of curiosity and ignorance Dr Marlys Witte is “a surgeon without hands”1, a researcher and educator of medical students and the self-proclaimed mother of the “medical ignorance” movement. She has not just adopted the Socratic method of educating through questions; her medical education model also develops the capability to be… 

What role should sales leadership play in their organisation’s deployment of CRM? A CRM application lies at the centre of the technology stack of most sales organisations. It often represents one of the most significant investments made to support sales effectiveness. And yet both organisations and users often express frustration with both the user experience and the quality of the… 

Don’t rely on “hopium” – the mindset that blocks agency growth and loses deals. I once had a boss who said, “I think we got away with that one” after just being told by the chairman of a global cereal brand our creative proposals were “the biggest load of crap ever seen”. We were fired the next day. The agency… 

Recent research highlights differences in how sales leaders and sellers view the best ways to engage with prospects, but the majority agree that buyer centricity is the right approach overall – that’s according to a study conducted by sales training specialist ValueSelling Associates and L&D publication Training Industry. A significant majority of sales leaders (61%) believe it makes sense to… 

A trio of important research-based sales books are in the pipeline this year and all are well worth checking out for different reasons. Book 1 The first of these is Transforming Sales Management: Lead Sales Teams Through Change by Grant Van Ulbrich, set for launch on 3 May 2023 along with the “Scared-So What” personal change app, which will be… 

Persimmon is the first homebuilder to achieve the Institute of Sales Professional’s Investor in Sales award. The award recognises commitment to develop strong customer relationships based on integrity, trust, and ethical selling. To date, 114 sales advisers have been fully accredited with the ISP with more to follow. Meanwhile, staff turnover within its sales excellence programme has fallen by 70%… 

Over 100 students from universities across South-East Asia recently competed in three rounds of the latest South-East Asia Sales Competition (SEASAC) 2022, sponsored by paint manufacturer PT Propan Raya. The competition offered participants a “great sales educational experience” one of the leading judges for the final round, Dr Colin Mackenzie told the Journal. The qualifying round was completed on 13-15… 

The way that pharmaceutical and medical device companies market and sell their products is on the cusp of major change, according to a paper from industry consultancy Impatient Health. Significant cuts are expected across commercial departments in 2023. “By the end of the year we will see 20% trimmed in commercial roles, at both HQ and country level,” the authors… 

Marking the start of National Apprenticeship Week on 6 February 2023, senior UK Treasury minister John Glen has called for students to undertake apprenticeships as an alternative to a traditional university degree. As part of the government’s campaign to boost apprenticeships, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury says that apprenticeships can offer better ROI for young people and will also… 

3 key business technologies for 2023 1…. 

How a single sales methodology can help to reap global benefits I am constantly amazed at how quickly companies that invest in a sales training methodology are led astray and lose out on the benefits it can deliver. Often, as the roll-out draws to a close, someone proposes a new “shiny toy”. Incredibly, they go for it, short-circuiting all the… 

Why development is so much more than just training. In “Hiring salespeople with talent” (see pages 6-7), I explored the challenges involved in making good sales hires. Now I want to shift attention to some of the key things we need to do if we are to fully develop the potential of the talented salespeople that we have just hired…. 

Why an evidence-based approach is the route to a successful sales hire. Finding and recruiting the right salespeople is perhaps the most important role for any sales manager or leader. Hiring the wrong person – or at the other end of the scale, failing to fill the position at all – is costly in so many ways. The wasted recruitment… 

“Putting the customer at the heart” by Mark Bailey Rolls-Royce plc is a company that deals with power and propulsion and should not be confused with the motor-car company, which is entirely separate. Rolls-Royce plc provides power and propulsion systems for land, sea, and air, including nuclear submarines, military and civil aircraft, and major data centres. All of its systems… 

SAP’s Experiential Sales Learning programs allow salespeople to learn in the flow of their work. To ensure that business continued to flow, in 2020 most companies worldwide responded to the pandemic by making the transition to remote working. More recently, as some businesses began to require employees to work onsite again, others have been cementing a hybrid working model as… 

When a group of non-native English speakers wanted to hone their English writing and speaking skills, they joined a programme exploring a range of literary genres via the work of a cross-section of authors. We set these business leaders the task of recounting their most memorable sales experiences in the Journal. In this special feature, we explore the rationale behind… 

While conflict needs to be managed well, it can also be productive. Conflict is a frequent challenge among business relationships with customers, partners and suppliers. Inside organisations, conflicts within teams and cross-functionally are also common, yet sales professionals often feel ill-equipped to manage conflict well. Unresolved conflict can spread and grow, and result in stress and well-being issues for those… 

Every salesperson has the potential to improve their storytelling skills. As human beings, we have evolved over the generations to use stories to communicate. Moreover, one of the key factors that sets today’s most effective salespeople apart from the rest is their ability to share compelling, relevant anecdotes – typically the experiences of other existing customers – that resonate with… 

Stories are not only enduring; they help drive business. Telling stories is what humans do; it is fundamental to the human experience. We’ve been telling stories for tens of millennia: 30,000 years at least. Cave paintings in the Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, located in the Auvergne district of France, date back 30,000 years and represent the oldest known storyboard to be… 

Almost every leader claims to be ethical in business, but do they have the character to foster trust? Ethics, necessary but not sufficient Corporate scandals from Enron to Freddie Mac occurred despite the fact that the organizations and individuals leading them were operating in environments governed by a code of ethics. Yet, people still behaved poorly. Why? Why do people…