Insight

The ability to coach is a key attribute that distinguishes truly effective first-level sales managers from the pack. What’s the one thing that separates truly effective first-level sales managers from the rest? You can make a case for their ability to motivate or to create an environment of responsibility and accountability, but there’s good reason to believe that their ability… 

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… 

How top sales innovators are embedding data and technology throughout their organisations to reimagine sales for the “next normal”. Sales has always been a “sensing” organisation, attuned to changes in customer sentiment, shifts in demand, and the requirements of different buying stages. But those senses are being flooded as customers shift to digital engagement, leaving sellers with more channels to cover… 

Selling power comes not from how much conversation we manage to get through, but the quality of the conversation. Supercharging sales is the overall theme of this edition of the International Journal of Sales Transformation, so I thought it might be appropriate to focus on a topic that has long been a focus of mine: how can salespeople supercharge their… 

What you need to know about how sales enablement technology is advancing. As is usual at this time of year, I have spent a lot of time thinking about enablement’s current state. Before I take a journey through sales-enablement technology trends, let’s briefly explore enablement and B2B sales, as both of these topics are influencing the outlook for technology for… 

Waldemar Adams explains how SAP’s sales organisation moved quickly to adapt in a year of dramatic change. iJosT: What do you think are the most important issues around sales currently? W A: What we see is that we are anyhow in a transition in the world of selling that has now accelerated because of the pandemic situation. Most of it… 

Why understanding team tenure can be a key to healthy sales-team dynamics and a rapid alignment of teams. The longer a team has spent together with the same composition of team members, the more harmonious interpersonal relationships become. The shared experience builds trust and psychological safety, leading to smoother team processes, more effective use of resources and increased team performance… 

Four forever changes transforming b2b revenue activities. Sales and marketing leaders, it’s time to level up. Buyers are searching for more information on their own, without talking to a sales rep. That means they are engaging with your content further down the funnel. As a result, your content can’t be just a companion to a sales-led customer conversation; it needs… 

The key issues for B2B sales leaders in 2021. 2020 proved to be a challenging year for many B2B sales organisations. Certain sectors powered ahead (for example, anything associated with e-commerce or digital transformation) but many other industries suffered significant declines in demand. 2021 will inevitably bring further challenges. Whilst the emergence of effective vaccines offers some hope for recovery,… 

How sales-enablement platforms can help us make a success of virtual onboarding. One positive to come out of 2020 was the accelerated push for digitalisation. For some, this meant learning to video call friends and family. For others, it meant moving every single work-related process from in-person to online. Now, we’re comfortable with hosting entirely virtual events, conducting virtual sales… 

How will leadership change in the digital future? Imagine… You are strolling on a boardwalk by the beach. The warm rays of the sun are tickling your nose as you savour the beautiful scenery. Suddenly, darkness takes over, the sun vanishes, and there is a mist in the air. A tornado! A huge swirling spout of water, this massive monster… 

The team’s work began in late 2016, when it was observed that sales metrics for SAP sales executives – while in line with or slightly above industry standards – were not meeting sales management expectations. With a worldwide digital transformation in full swing, it was imperative that SAP’s sales executives were well-trained to help customers understand and implement emerging innovations… 

Beyond the gimmick Digital sales rooms: are they fact or fancy? For some time, the sales industry has been considering how innovations like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can support the sales process. However, for many, they simply represents a gimmick rather than a genuine means of engaging with buyers and adding value to the experience. However, with… 

Do you have compelling answers to three crucial customer questions: why change, why you, why now? Generic value propositions, while they might be of some use in persuading potential prospects to make initial contact with you as a potential vendor, aren’t very helpful when it comes to setting your customer’s expectations about the specific value that they will derive from… 

How to lead virtual (and hybrid) meetings. In spring 2020, meetings changed. Instead of physically meeting up with colleagues, everything moved online during lockdown. Of course, sales teams have been catching up with colleagues in the field by phone or video chat for years, but, in March, everything went remote: team meetings, client meetings and much, much more. While meetings… 

Breaking down complexity to boost sales performance. There’s no denying it, the buying process is more complicated, longer and involves more stakeholders than ever before. But in contrast to this change, product life cycles are becoming much shorter and salespeople are feeling the pressure. Getting to grips with increasingly complex products and solutions in a short time means salespeople not… 

Nick de Cent is in conversation with Philip Stylund, discussing sales strategy post-COVID-19 and the blended world of the future. Nick de Cent: In these times of great uncertainty, do you predict that the rush to online sales that we’re seeing will further broaden the divide between simple and complex sales in B2B? And what I mean by that is:… 

How to manage and lead through the current crisis with the wisdom of Aristotle. In a recent London Business School poll, we asked an audience of over 1,000 senior executives how as leaders they would like to look back on the current crisis. They could choose from five possible outcomes – for them personally as well as for their organisations:… 

We asked leading academics, professional bodies and consultants for their views on how sales leaders can best respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Unprecedented is a word we hear being bandied about a lot since the emergence of the COVID-19 virus. Nevertheless, the situation we all face is indeed unprecedented, and the world will never be exactly the same again, even… 

Bob Apollo on Sales Methodologies In recent articles in this series, I’ve taken a look at some of today’s most widely adopted B2B sales methodologies. Many sales methodologies (in the interest, no doubt, of selling more books and training courses) claim to have a uniquely effective approach. Yet, and perhaps inevitably, each methodology has its strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots….