Insight

For the past few columns, I introduced critical issues in designing your own research, with a special focus on how to design experiments. For the next few columns, I’m going to build on those pieces to some extent, to explore a set of issues that I see as perhaps even more important – and especially so in today’s world. Specifically,… 

Bob Apollo on Building Scalable Businesses Long ago and far away, there was a time when “selling to the C-level” was a credible and often effective strategy. Dozens – maybe hundreds – of sales books were written on the subject. If you could successfully sell to the top, so the authors claimed, sales success would surely follow. Now, there’s no… 

The truth may hurt, but being a good loser is a key strategy for future success. Business has been using client feedback to sharpen performance since the year dot and Loss Reviews have long been part of the competitive sales cycle. But the process fell out of favour with many corporates because the information it provided wasn’t valued – why… 

Pressure on the sales function has placed the salesperson in the uncomfortable position of dealing with complex, unrelenting ethical dilemmas on an almost daily basis. The sales department has never been more important to the organization. Given clearly established metrics and direct revenue contributions that connect to financial performance, coupled with an essential role in creating customer value, it is… 

How to prepare, execute, and learn from a new way to listen Last issue, we shared with you our thinking around “The Art of Discovery” (International Journal of Sales Transformation, September 2016/Issue 2.3). We discussed a nearly universal problem faced by salespeople: that “selling” is equated with “pitching.” Day in and day out, it involves a process that includes: a)… 

Hiring, developing and retaining salespeople have been something of a dark art. It’s often expensive and inefficient, but new talent-management techniques are bringing us into the 21st century. Skilled professionals have credibility with customers, and you can’t afford to compromise the credibility of your brand by sending second-best into the field Dr Beth Rogers In their 2015 Harvard Business Review… 

For the past couple of columns, I’ve been discussing various issues around how to think scientifically and do experiments. In this column, what I want to do is bring a close to this series by presenting a couple of basic designs that could be used to generate knowledge of what works and what doesn’t in sales forces, including a “not-quite-experimental”… 

Jim Collins’ Good to Great has been the inspiration for many CEOs who are determined to elevate their companies from run-of-the-mill to lasting greatness. There are many lessons to be learned from the book but one of the most significant is the idea that, before organisations can stand a chance of realising their potential, they must get the right people… 

When organisations talk about their sales process, they are usually thinking in terms of a sequence of sales activities, typically encapsulated in a series of pipeline stages, which are designed to move a prospect from first contact to a successful sale. There’s overwhelming research to prove that having a formalised sales process has helped many organisations to improve sales performance…. 

Dr Roy Whitten and Scott Roy discuss what to do before the pitch and how to do it. The biggest problem my salespeople have is that they just don’t listen well enough!” The speaker was vice-president and director of sales for a division of one of the world’s largest telecoms companies. He continued: “Or, if they do listen, they only… 

In the last issue of the Journal, I wrote about the importance of thinking like a scientist. In simple terms, this is the process of asking the right questions, and avoiding assumptions and ideologies about what “should” be the right answer. If you’ve digested that column, and are ready to think about how best to go about answering those questions,… 

Bob Apollo on Building Scalable Businesses In the majority of sales organisations, a high percentage of sales revenue is generated by the same minority of top sales performers, quarter after quarter. According to research published by the CEB in The Challenger Sale, this performance gap between top salespeople and the rest is amplified in complex, high-value sales environments. They found… 

It pays to take time to learn about Asian culture and etiquette if you want to do business in this thriving region. In the ever-shrinking global landscape, expanding your experience to include an overseas placement is fast becoming mandatory. Forcing yourself out of your cultural comfort zone and into an unfamiliar environment gives you the opportunity to blend information and… 

How business development is proving to have a transformational impact on the sales and business process. The term “business development” will conjure up different connotations depending on who you canvass opinion from; it often gets classed as demand generation or inside sales to name but a few. In fact the roles that these functions perform and the skillsets required are… 

Are you, your team members or your customers relationship driven, achievement driven or growth driven? It makes a difference. Brian Tracy in his many books and tapesI claims that 50% of any sale is a “transfer of enthusiasm”; in other words, it is something quite independent of the skill sets that so many organisations spend so much money investing in…. 

How the investment community works and why SV is good not only for marketing, but also for KAM. There are two schools of thought about the topic of shareholder value (SV). One school, led by Professor Hugh Davidson, argues that it leads to short-termism. The other school, to which I belong, argues that short-termism has been endemic in Western economies… 

Here are some simple thinking tools to help with problem solving and make us better managers. If someone asked you whether you were certain that your sales incentive programme was effective, what would you say? What about if they asked whether you knew whether your firm’s advertising was working? Or how about if they asked if you knew the impact… 

Bob Apollo on Building Scalable Businesses Market segmentation has traditionally been based on demographic factors such as company size, sector and location. But these simple characteristics are hopelessly inadequate predictors of which specific organisations you should focus your marketing and sales energies on. That’s because in any complex B2B sales environment, there will be a set of specific unique-to-you structural,… 

Leadership and millennial expert, Dr Mary Collins is Senior Executive Development Expert at the Royal College of Surgeons Institute of Leadership. She offers some expert advice on how to attract the female millennial into sales. Given the unique motivations of the female millennial, how can companies best engage them to ensure they attract and retain key talent and elicit the… 

Victoria Williams is Vice President and Sales Director at GSK. She describes the transformation that has occurred in pharmaceutical sales and urges women to put themselves forward and avoid over-questioning their capabilities. Selling has changed vastly in the past 20 years with the emphasis now on value. If I compare today to when I was a medical representative in Nottingham,…