Latest News

KEEP UP TO DATE with the latest sales news from around the world, including stories and developments with a commercial, educational and political theme of potential interest to sales leaders and their teams.

A pioneering Master’s programme

March 15th, 2022 by

Ambitious sales teams may want to take inspiration from tech giant SAP’s flagship Master’s programme for sales leaders and frontline sales managers. This ten-year sales transformation journey has seen 140+ managers trained to become transformational leaders, representing a unique investment by SAP in its Leaders in Sales – no other company has sustained the costs and efforts around such a… 


Cranfield KAM Forum online

January 11th, 2022 by

Reports from the Q2 and Q3 sessions While things are slowly returning to normal, the Cranfield KAM Forum seminars are continuing to complement the regular face-to face meetings that will resume when it is safe to do so. The webinars continue to address both strategic and operational themes and personal development topics of interest for key account managers. In this… 


The power of relationships and purpose

January 11th, 2022 by

Digital is enhancing the way we manage business and sales organisations, but analytics are underpinned by relationships and human behaviours. The value tied up in customer relationships is vast but hard to measure; purpose is now a profit centre and predictable human behaviours can help us to forecast sales more accurately. These were just three of the key takeaways from… 


Learning through competition

January 10th, 2022 by

Three perspectives on enhancing sales skills through sales competitions. Introduction The USA has led the way in developing and promoting sales competitions for university students. However, this dominance is quietly being challenged by the Europeans and universities across Southeast Asia. There are different factors at play around the world as well as alternative pedogeological approaches. This article discusses the challenges… 


Creating an effective coaching culture

January 10th, 2022 by

How embedded is coaching in your organisation? Introduction In the past few decades, coaching has become an established professional learning method. Some sales organisations have dedicated staff coaches, but leaders tend to underuse coaching to tap into the full potential and motivation of their teams. Frequently job ads for sales leaders include the requirement to coach; however, many feel underequipped,… 


Is coaching the critical sales management skill?

January 10th, 2022 by

It’s all about time, skills and mindset. Successful sales managers must master a range of important skills. They need to make sure that they recruit the right people and help them to realise their potential, encourage their teams to follow and contribute to the organisation’s learned best practices, ensure that opportunities are well-qualified, that pipelines are well managed and that… 


Technology

November 26th, 2021 by

Rod Barthet, CEO, Kyocera Document Solutions UK; Iain Masson, RVP UK & Nordics, Showpad Q: What are the top-three new agenda items that sales leaders will be thinking about for 2022? IM: Buying behaviours have evolved tremendously throughout the digital age, seeing the most accelerated growth specifically throughout the pandemic, and sellers must rapidly adapt accordingly. Working and living in… 


The Professional Bodies

November 26th, 2021 by

Australian Institute of Sales, New Zealand Institute of Sales – Stuart Edmunds, Director; Association of Professional Sales – Andrew Hough, CEO Stuart Edmund’s overview from New Zealand In reality, we’re probably not a lot different from anywhere else in the world – more of the same, but different, and we’ll have twice what we needed pre-pandemic in the post-pandemic world…. 


The Practitioners

November 26th, 2021 by

Waldemar Adams, Global Senior Vice President, SAP Customer Success COO Office; Grant Van Ulbrich, Director, Sales Transformation – International, Royal Caribbean International Q: What will be the top-three agenda items for sales leaders as businesses emerge from the pandemic? WA: 1) Ensure customer success. 2) Budget achievement and growth plans. 3) Manage their teams successfully, with empathy. GVU: Our focus… 


The Consultants

November 26th, 2021 by

Mark Davies, Founder, Segment Pulse Limited, Visiting Fellow, Centre for Strategic Marketing and Sales, Cranfield School of Management, and The Advanced Services Group, Aston Business School; Dr Mark Hollyoake, Director, Customer Attuned and Associate Lecturer, University of the West of England; Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy Officer, Corporate Visions; Dr Philip Squire, CEO, Consalia; Philip Styrlund, CEO, The Summit Group Introductory… 


The Academics

November 26th, 2021 by

Dr Frank Cespedes, senior lecturer, Harvard Business School; Professor Mark Johnston, Professor of Marketing and Ethics, Rollins College; Professor Nick Lee, Warwick Business School; Dr Colin Mackenzie, specialist lecturer, Edinburgh Napier University; Dr Javier Marcos, Associate Professor, Strategic Sales Management and Negotiation, Cranfield School of Management; Dr Beth Rogers, Visiting Fellow, Cranfield School of Management Q: What will be the… 


This time it’s personal!

November 26th, 2021 by

In the bold new world of sales, a mental shift is required. The pandemic turned the whole world upside down: it made us shift our priorities away from things that we once thought were important to new ways of working and living. As people switch careers and re-evaluate how they spend their time, naturally their behaviours have fundamentally changed. In… 


No going back

November 26th, 2021 by

What should B2B sales leaders be prioritising in 2022? As we head towards 2022, sales organisations are emerging from a tumultuous two years. Across many markets and industries, the sales function has had to cope with transformational changes that have been compressed into a short period of time. Inevitably, some sales organisations have managed to adapt better than others. They… 


A new paradigm for CPD in sales

September 28th, 2021 by

Why there needs to be a fresh approach to the personal development of sales executives and their managers. Many readers of this article may already be in superb sales organisations; however, for those in the sales field it will come as no surprise that many small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) have little in the way of formal sales training that could be… 


The role of trust in sales

September 27th, 2021 by

If we expect our customers to trust us, we need to develop both an internal and an external culture of trust. Trust is an essential foundational element in any sales environment, and it can (and must) take many forms. Perhaps the most obvious manifestation lies in the relationship between the salesperson (and the vendor they represent) and the customer’s decision-making… 


Four steps to embedding ethics

September 27th, 2021 by

Sales ethics is essential in the new normal. Good business strategy Many companies, even entire industries, struggle to remain open during this ongoing period of challenging economic uncertainty. Business models that were shifting prior to the pandemic, such as the move from instore shopping to e-commerce, have accelerated because of the pandemic. Businesses are adjusting strategies to stay ahead of… 


CSO post-Pandemic checklist

September 27th, 2021 by

GARTNER SUGGESTS EIGHT STEPS TO CREATE COMPETITIVE… 


THE VALUE OF TRUST ONLINE

September 27th, 2021 by

OVER ONE THIRD (35%) OF UK ONLINE… 


Five key topics for KAMs

July 27th, 2021 by

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Cranfield Key Account Management Forum. Here’s what participants discussed in Q1. In 2021 we mark the 25th anniversary of the Key Account Management Forum at Cranfield University. Following the Covid-19 pandemic the Cranfield KAM Forum has created a series of on-line seminars to complement the regular face-to face meetings that will resume… 


The gift of anxiety

July 26th, 2021 by

Perhaps surprisingly, the nature of anxiety means that it offers an inherent opportunity for personal and professional growth. In high-value and complex B2B sales, ambitious sales targets and growth plans are common. Typically, sales professionals are measured on outcomes they can control only to a certain extent. As they mature in their career, many develop ways of managing sales pressure…