Latest News

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solve the problem of salespeople having difficulty finding the right type of content when they need it, or worse, using outdated content stored on their desktops.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… 

Some 10,000 new level-4 apprentices could soon be joining the UK sales profession every year. That’s the view of Association of Professional Sales joint CEO, Ben Turner. He told the Journal: ”There is no reason why not; there’s not been an employer of any size that has looked at this and said ‘having professionally qualified apprentices in sales is a… 

This article extracts some of the key points from a talk at this year’s Sales Educators’ Academy Conference at Aston Business School in Birmingham, and the debate that followed. The presentation on strategic sales enablement in the face of unrelenting change was given by Robert Racine, VP, Global Sales Enablement at Wipro. Racine ran a central sales enablement function today… 

Why sales enablement is the key to effective sales transformation. Sales enablement is a fast-growing discipline. In our research, we’ve seen the percentage of organizations that reported having a sales enablement initiative or function grow from 19.3% in 2013 to 32.7% in 2016 to 59.2% last year. With so many people getting involved with sales enablement for the first time… 

Here we explore designing customer-centric processes for mutual growth. More than three decades of research and managerial practice have informed the development of a solid knowledge base for defining and planning key account management (KAM). Executives attending our KAM training programmes and commissioning consulting interventions tell us time and time again that the crucial challenge is the implementation of KAM…. 

Salespeople are having to work even harder to satisfy buyers across a whole range of metrics. The third edition of the State of Sales report from Salesforce.com’s research arm found that 72% of buyers expect vendors to personalise engagement to their needs, while 79% say It’s easier than ever to take their business elsewhere. Today, customer satisfaction (CSAT) is the… 

Research and advisory firm Gartner has sold its Challenger business to Los Angeles based private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners less than 18 months after acquiring it as part of CEB. Gartner acquired CEB on 6 April 2017 for some $2.6 billion in cash and stock; financial terms of the subsequent sale to Marlin of the business based around the… 

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Robert Racine on the morning of 3 September. Despite a demanding role as Wipro’s VP, Global Sales Enablement, Robert always found time to contribute to organisations dedicated to furthering our understanding of sales enablement. He was a member of the Journal’s editorial board, a Fellow of the APS, and… 

The primary goal of sales enablement must surely be to increase sales effectiveness by progressively reducing the performance gap between our best sales people and the rest, measured by revenue and other tangible metrics. But it seems to me that a number of sales enablement programmes (typically the less successful ones) have made insufficient efforts to understand the winning behaviours… 

How Big Data-Driven Coaching has been boosting win rates. Maintaining a position of pre-eminence in the highly competitive IT industry requires leaders to adapt to changes in the business landscape more rapidly than the competition. Continued success also relies on the development of innovative sales enablement techniques that boost performance, help meet customer needs and achieve bottom-line results. Digital Transformation… 

The nature of professional selling has transformed profoundly over the past few decades, resulting in a fundamental redefinition of the role of the sales force. Drawing on a study comprising interview data from 37 senior sales leaders, sales consultants and prominent sales academics from the US, UK and other European countries, I synthesise three key drivers for change and identify… 

Last time around, I wrote about artificial intelligence (AI) and sales. More specifically, I speculated on the possible impact of one type of AI – deep learning – on sales as we know it today. I explained that many features of more routinised sales jobs might be amenable to replacement by deep-learning methods, and also that perhaps this might not… 

You’ll notice a number of articles elsewhere in this edition on the subject of coaching. I want to use this short piece to focus on an area that has become a particular interest of mine: using coaching techniques to help our salespeople develop more effective opportunity strategies. I’ve observed organisations that do a particularly effective job of opportunity coaching, viewed…