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Account-based marketing is increasingly recognised as a highly effective approach to working with key accounts, so is of major interest to key account managers looking for new approaches. November’s KAMBP explored how to use ABM and KAM together. Bev Burgess, Senior Vice President & Practice Lead, and Dave Munn, President and CEO, introduced ITSMA (the Information Technology Services Marketing Association)… 

How a relationship-based group coaching model can improve performance. As a salesperson and subsequent sales leader with more than two decades of experience, on-the-job learning has provided me with valuable insights and business management skills. However, given the rapidly evolving business environment, I realised the need to embark upon a continuous learning path. On learning about the SAP Master’s programme,… 

Breaking down complexity to boost sales performance. There’s no denying it, the buying process is more complicated, longer and involves more stakeholders than ever before. But in contrast to this change, product life cycles are becoming much shorter and salespeople are feeling the pressure. Getting to grips with increasingly complex products and solutions in a short time means salespeople not… 

Nick de Cent is in conversation with Philip Stylund, discussing sales strategy post-COVID-19 and the blended world of the future. Nick de Cent: In these times of great uncertainty, do you predict that the rush to online sales that we’re seeing will further broaden the divide between simple and complex sales in B2B? And what I mean by that is:… 

How to manage and lead through the current crisis with the wisdom of Aristotle. In a recent London Business School poll, we asked an audience of over 1,000 senior executives how as leaders they would like to look back on the current crisis. They could choose from five possible outcomes – for them personally as well as for their organisations:… 

We asked leading academics, professional bodies and consultants for their views on how sales leaders can best respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Unprecedented is a word we hear being bandied about a lot since the emergence of the COVID-19 virus. Nevertheless, the situation we all face is indeed unprecedented, and the world will never be exactly the same again, even… 

Bob Apollo on Sales Methodologies In recent articles in this series, I’ve taken a look at some of today’s most widely adopted B2B sales methodologies. Many sales methodologies (in the interest, no doubt, of selling more books and training courses) claim to have a uniquely effective approach. Yet, and perhaps inevitably, each methodology has its strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots…. 

Report from the Cranfield KAM Best Practice Forum 26 September 2019. Key account managers are always striving to find better ways to cooperate and co-create value with their opposite numbers in purchasing. Similarly, professional purchasing managers are always striving to obtain the best possible deal for their organisations and get away from entirely price-focused negotiations. So the most recent KAM… 

In the digital era, perhaps more than ever before, it is becoming increasingly apparent to advertisers that they must carefully consider what vocabulary will most likely resonate with members of their target audiences in order to communicate effectively with them. Should salespeople be following this lead? Some ten years’ ago I authored a book featuring 52 separate selling skills.* One… 

Barry Gray is preparing for the last great polar challenge. Here he talks mind-set and leadership. As Barry “Baz” Gray prepares to follow in the footsteps of his hero Sir Ernest Shackleton, he has a sense of history and his potential place amongst the pantheon of polar explorers. “For me it’s about doing something that’s never been done,” the former… 

How salespeople can make a difference in helping their organisation stand-out from competitors, in ways that resonate with customers. In our book Value-ology (Kelly, Johnston and Danheiser 2017), we drew attention to Qvidian’s research that showed 58% of deals end up in no decision because the customer has not been convinced of the value being offered, which means your biggest… 

Following my initial two “Spotlight on…” articles on Sandler and Strategic Selling, I now want to turn my attention to another long-established, widely adopted and still-relevant sales methodology: SPIN® Selling from Huthwaite International. The concepts behind SPIN® were the result of extensive research by Neil Rackham and his colleagues into the patterns of success and failure in complex B2B sales…. 

Britain is critically short of professional salespeople with the right leadership, negotiation and digital skills to win deals in new marketplaces, an inquiry by a cross-party group of MPs has found. In its first report, published as Britain prepares to leave the European Union, the All- Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Professional Sales highlights endemic problems in Britain’s sales sector… 

Alumni from Consalia and Middlesex University’s Masters sales transformation programmes joined other business leaders at this year’s Global Sales Transformation Conference to explore the fast-changing business landscape. Security was tighter than normal in the face of Extinction Rebellion protests as delegates gathered at the London Stock Exchange on 15 October for a packed day of discussion around the topic “Pushing… 

Marketing and sales messaging, content, and skills training company Corporate Visions acquired Memzy in October. Memzy specializes in designing memorable, neuroscience-backed communications and presentation content. Known for its science-backed whiteboard storytelling, Corporate Visions says the acquisition will allow it to expand into other areas – particularly for the growing number of online sales meetings (versus face-to-face where PowerPoint is the… 

The UK is trailing behind Europe in customer service as brands race to adopt AI technologies in order to transform how they engage with customers. This is according to a new report from customer engagement software company Freshworks. The report reveals that just over half (54%) of UK senior decision-makers state their business currently uses AI – in areas such… 

Global organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry completed its acquisition of sales enablement specialist Miller Heiman, including research arm CSO Insights, on 1 November. It has also acquired two other companies in the leadership development sphere: AchieveForum, and Strategy Execution in the move which bolsters its learning and development offerings. The move is part of Korn Ferry’s bid accelerate to its… 

Overwhelmed B2B buyers are facing a crisis of confidence as they increasingly struggle to make large-scale purchase decisions. That’s according to research and advisory specialist Gartner. Research findings revealed at the recent Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference in Las Vegas suggest that the root cause of customers’ struggle has little to do with how they perceive suppliers’ offerings and… 

Reporting from the Cranfield KAM Best Practice Forum 20 June 2019. Key account managers and purchasing professionals are increasingly recognising the importance of co-creating value and the key part that the latest technology can have in facilitating that. So, the most recent KAM Best Practice Forum at Cranfield University decided to focus on how Key Account Managers can embrace technology… 

How a unified negotiations approach drives customer loyalty and more revenue for SAP. The digital revolution is having a dramatic effect on the sales world. Listening to the customer, taking their concerns and strategic objectives on board, and using their feedback to identify the best possible solution has always proved to be an effective strategy. However, sales success can also…