Accelerating the potential of new talent
January 29th, 2016 by Dr Beth Rogers and Bryan McCraeHiring and onboarding is an expensive and time-consuming process. It pays to get it right. The costs of recruitment are on the rise again, with an increase of around 50% from 24 months ago, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; meanwhile, four out of five employers are saying that the competition for well-qualified talent has increased over…
Five key issues around ethics and performance
January 28th, 2016 by Mark W JohnstonProfessor Mark Johnston explores the conundrum of the high-performing, low ethics salesperson. Organizations strive to hire, train, develop and enable salespeople to reach a high level of performance. Of course, as every sales manager knows, only a few can truly be considered “high performers”. Research on high-performing salespeople suggests they are different and often require sales managers to “adjust” their…
Natural salespeople do not exist
January 28th, 2016 by Professor Nick LeeNick Lee on… The myth of natural talent Why the superstar culture is bad for both the “stars” and the rest of the team. One of the more pervasive ideas in the popular perception of success in almost any field is that of the “natural”. What I mean is that we humans appear to be almost hardwired to explain the…
The critical combination: focus, process and people
January 28th, 2016 by Bob ApolloBob Apollo on Building Scalable Businesses What can businesses do to ensure that they establish the platform for predictable, reliable and sustainable revenue and market share growth? I’m going to assume that you have a product or service that people want to buy. But that’s clearly not enough. I want to highlight three critical (and timeless) principles that have always…
It’s all about the client
October 31st, 2015 by Chris AlderAuthenticity, cultural fit and solving client problems are just some of keys to selling professional services, reports Chris Alder. Too many people in professional services do too little to understand the business of their clients – let alone clients’ specific issues and concerns. That’s a startling conclusion from a white paper published by sales training specialists Huthwaite International.1 Add in…
Can the Internet of Things create a new wave of value?
October 31st, 2015 by Dr Beth RogersDr Beth Rogers ask whether the “Internet of Things” is set to transform the sales paradigm yet further. Imagine a future where customers’ needs are met even before the customer has identified them or a salesperson has prompted for them. It is a future where the role of the salesperson is focused on high-profile change projects, rooted in idea generation…
Do you qualify as a winner?
October 31st, 2015 by Nick de Cent and Chris AlderThe rewards for going after a choice piece of business can be huge, but making the right decisions can mean life or death. In today’s fiercely competitive environment the consequences of failure can indeed be career changing – for all the wrong reasons. Qualifying sales opportunities effectively is arguably the most important thing any company large or small will do,…
Discipline: what works best – for the individual, the team, and the organization?
October 31st, 2015 by Professor Nick LeeWhat can we discover from research about the best way of dealing with problem salespeople? In the 15 years I have spent working with frontline sales managers, one particular issue has loomed larger than any other. Specifically, when a sales manager is faced with a problem with one or more of their salespeople, how best should they deal with it?…
Fixing the broken financial services model
July 6th, 2015 by Chris AlderHow can sales survive in a banking sector beset by scandal? Interest rate hedging products where businesses were mis-sold complex insurance deals… tax dodging… manipulation of the London interbank lending rate (LIBOR) to boost profit from trades… money laundering… the manipulation of foreign exchange rates by out-of-control rogue traders – these have been the scandals which for many have come…
To improve sales, pay more attention to presales
July 5th, 2015 by Homayoun Hatami, Candace Lun Plotkin and Saurabh MishraAs buying behaviour becomes more sophisticated, presales has emerged as a vital engine in the sales pipeline, argues McKinsey & Co. At a time when CEOs are on a constant quest for growth, there is a promising but often overlooked capability available close to home: presales. Building on our analysis of what drives performance in our book Sales Growth, we…
Competing against “do nothing”
July 5th, 2015 by Bob ApolloIf you’re involved in complex sales in a B2B environment, your most significant competitor is almost certainly not another vendor, but the status quo. According to the latest findings from Sirius Decisions, Sales Benchmark Index and many other respected researchers, an increasingly common outcome for even well-qualified sales opportunities is not a win, or a competitive loss, but a decision…
Researchers and consultants discuss the power of first-line sales managers
April 12th, 2015 by Nick de CentBlackdot on the value of sales managers First-line sales managers are drivers of performance for pharma sales representatives, as they are in other industries… The profound and compounding impact sales managers have on their sales teams means that 1 high-performing sales manager is as valuable as a handful of high-performing sales reps. High-performing sales managers manage teams that achieve superior…
Challenging Challenger
April 11th, 2015 by Chris AlderThe debate swirling around the controversial “Challenger” approach to selling has raised important questions about the way ahead for the sales profession. Chris Alder investigates. It’s probably fair to say that few books on the art of selling have caused quite so much of a stir as the one published in 2011 entitled The Challenger Sale – Taking Control of…
Can two stars ever shine together?
April 11th, 2015 by Dr Paolo AversaLast year’s spat between Mercedes Formula 1 team drivers has implications for the performance of business teams, a recent study suggests. HOW does a sales manager harness the abilities of two competing star performers in the sales team to best advantage? The manager’s skill at getting the best out of his team could have a significant impact on the fortunes…
Aligning strategy and sales
April 11th, 2015 by Frank CespedesHarvard Business School’s Dr Frank Cespedes tells Nick de Cent why strategy is even more relevant in an era of constant change. NdeC: Does strategy still work in an era of constant change? What is the role of a business strategy in these conditions? FC: Some now say that strategy is less important – and may, in fact, be an…

Key transformational trends in selling
April 11th, 2015 by Dr Javier Marcos and Dr Philip SquireOrganisations need to understand how selling is evolving and to involve sales leadership in developing strategies to thrive in the new environment. Summary Professional selling is undergoing significant and unprecedented change that, in turn, profoundly impacts the role of the professional salesperson. Change has always been part of professional selling; however, the scale and speed of that change has…
Buyers are growing up too
April 11th, 2015 by Paul MylesWhile most areas of business have changed in recent years, none has seen as dramatic a revolution as procurement and supply chain management, argues David Noble, CEO at CIPS. Speaking exclusively to the International Journal of Sales Transformation, Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply chief executive officer David Noble explains that the profession has had to change dramatically to keep…
Does pharma truly understand KAM?
April 11th, 2015 by Nick de CentNick de Cent finds that pharma thought-leaders are successfully adapting KAM models to their own ecosystem. Not all big accounts are key accounts. That’s one important lesson that the pharma industry has been learning the hard way. Another is that effective key account management (KAM) is more about finding effective solutions than simply flogging product in a more complex environment….
Two types of value
April 11th, 2015 by Todd SnelgroveTodd Snelgrove on how customer intelligence can help you define your strategic approach to value, with a choice of two approaches. As salespeople, we need to use our understanding of the customer, and each decision maker within a customer, to decide what drives them professionally and personally and to know which sales strategy is best suited to engage them in…
Intelligence collection: the second-oldest profession
April 11th, 2015 by John ArdisCan business learn any lessons from the professional intelligence community? Dr John Ardis suggests we can. During the Cold War, teams of intelligence analysts would pore over microfilm and squint at grainy aerial photographs. Human intelligence sources (or HUMINT in the vernacular – better known as spies) provided secret information about weapons, other spies, dark strategies and double bluffs. You…