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Surprisingly little research has been conducted to uncover the major challenges for KAM implementation in professional service firms. Here, the authors discuss how to identify and address them. Professional Service Firms (PSF) provide specialised advice to their customers, and are characterised by knowledge intensity, low capital intensity (in fixed assets), and a professionalised workforce, which makes them distinct from companies… 

Managing sales talent effectively through robust hiring and development processes is only half the story; we need to align these daily processes with company strategy… and we should be developing sales talent far earlier. Hiring and developing salespeople is costly – there is absolutely no doubt about that. According to a recent blog by Chally Group , while a low… 

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 Association of Professional Sales announced in February that it has launched a full suite of sales qualifications to represent the skills of salespeople at every stage of their career. Ben Turner, APS general manager, told the Journal: “We are putting in place the means for salespeople to demonstrate that they are professional people who are learning, and being assessed… 

Artificial intelligence–powered predictive sales acceleration platform, InsideSales.com unveiled plans last month to expand into Ireland as part of an initiative to better serve customers across the EMEA region. The firm says the move could create some 120 jobs in the republic. “We’re not only looking to hire some of Ireland’s best and brightest technology graduates, but also to help build… 

The International Journal of Sales Transformation is initiating a major research programme designed to provide increased insight into sales processes and performance. The programme involves a three-way collaboration between leading academics, industry sponsors with an interest in promoting authoritative research with a practical application and the Journal, which will assist in promoting the research and communicating the results. “We are… 

Could 2017 be the year car sales head out of the showroom and go online? That’s the speculation in some quarters, although commentators suggest it will take a couple of generations. Steve Huntingford, editor of What Car? has been quoted by the BBC as saying: “The traditional way of buying a car will gradually shrink and, in a couple of… 

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… 

The GSK bribery scandal rocked pharma when a record fine was handed down in 2014. It has forced the company and the wider industry to reconsider their sales approaches. Just over two years ago the Wall Street Journal reported that UK drug giant GSK’s local subsidiary in China had been found guilty of bribery and fined nearly half a billion… 

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)… 

Donna O’Toole, managing director of August, introduces the Professional Sales Awards. In spite of these dramatic improvements, however, the sales force is still a grossly underutilised and poorly directed resource. This has more to do with ineffective marketing strategy than with inefficient sales strategy. Since the beginning of the century, and until recently, the sales profession in the UK has… 

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… 

Two important sales competitions are taking place in Scotland next year. The 4th European Sales competition will be held at Edinburgh Napier Business School’s Craiglockhart campus in Edinburgh on 31 May and 1 June 2017. This event has already secured sponsorship from the likes of Salesforce, Oracle, Gartner and RBS, according to one of the organisers, Dr Tony Douglas, Associate… 

More universities need to teach sales – that’s according to Frank Cespedes and Daniel Weinfurter writing in the Harvard Business Review. “For decades, Sales and Academia remained worlds apart and the business world did fine. But Sales is changing, Academia is out of touch, and this is bad for business and the academy,” the authors write. The argue that more… 

CEB (Corporate Executive Board) – best known for its Challenger programme – and Consalia have announced a pioneering Masters (MSc) qualification for professionals involved in complex sales. The launch accompanies the announcement of a partnership between the two organisations. The move is designed to bring new “rigour” and enhanced capabilities for sales transformation between global insight and technology giant CEB… 

The Association of Professional Sales (APS) has announced a partnership with one of the sales world’s leading training, consultancy and research groups, Huthwaite International. The APS says that its new skills partner Huthwaite will “bring fresh insight and research to the profession, as well as working hard to drive the highest standards of quality and excellence across the sales industry”….