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Here we preview original research on how best to engage your audience during virtual meetings. The move at many companies is to expand inside sales teams and decrease the number of “feet on the street”. But, for all the potential cost savings and productivity gains, this transition creates some serious engagement questions and challenges resulting from the virtual barrier between…
Research by IT marketplace Probrand.co.uk indicates that a major gap exists between what buyers expect and what is currently being delivered by IT suppliers. It highlights the trend away from engaging salespeople early in the buying cycle but also highlights significant differences between buying products and services. The survey reveals that more than half of B2B buyers (53%) now like…
Methodology and scope A wide range of companies offer training and professional development services to the sales profession, making myriad claims about their capability – so determining the right partner for you can be a tricky process. In this study, a strategy grid was used to help position some of the leading UK, European and US vendors on a more…
When SAP decided it had a need for teams to implement a new sales strategy to better address customer needs, it implemented a Challenger programme (alongside other components). Importantly, the company decided to include robust business impact metrics. Pipeline analysis* Account executives with a minimum of 180 days’ experience in their role at the time of the training have: +
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…
These pages aim to keep readers informed of recently published research on sales-related topics, by including abstracts of peer-reviewed academic research published in a range of journals. In this edition, we have grouped them into four broad themes: sales performance, customer management, capability development, and behavioural studies. Sales performance Sales organisations need to transform Professional sales and sales management are…
Coaching in Ireland is in the early stage of its life cycle, mostly used by “early adopters” rather than being in the mainstream of management tools. The use of coaching in companies as a development tool for employees has exploded over the past 15 to 20 years. According to a report by Frank Bresser (2009) there are about 43,000 to…
Can organisations understand how to recruit salespeople who are adaptable, coachable, and willing to embrace new learning? What makes a good salesperson? Arguably there are many characteristics and behaviours, and whilst some commentators pigeon-hole salespeople with simplistic titles to define their characters (Dixon and Adamson 2011), others take a different view and suggest that great salespeople demonstrate “differentiating mind-sets”, reflected…
We talk a lot about transformation but how often does training involve genuine transformation? In the case of global software and services giant SAP there was an urgent need for a thorough transformation in the way the organisation sold, driven by major disruption in the market caused by the migration of IT systems away from an on-premises model onto the…
SAP’s D&I strategy seeks to build a more inclusive workforce and better business results. SAP is in an industry where the pace of innovation separates the winners from the losers, and a greater variety of insights and experiences leads to new ideas and innovations. We recognised this need and embarked on a strategy to ensure we were drawing on and…
Diversity brings the risk of fragmentation, but the best companies are able to project a single voice by telling a consistently engaging story. Today, an employee base with diverse experiences, skills and perspectives is one of your biggest organizational strengths. But like many good things, a diverse talent pool, for all the brainpower and energy and dynamism it adds to…
Delegates at Consalia’s 12th Global Sales Transformation conference in Singapore on 19 September 2017 offered their collective thoughts on the state of diversity and inclusion today, and where it is headed in the future. FOR MORE INFORMATION +
These pages aim to keep readers informed of recently published research on sales related topics, by including abstracts of peer-reviewed academic research published in a range of journals. In this edition, we have grouped them into four broad themes: sales performance, customer management, behavioural studies, and systems and tools. Sales performance Value-based selling is critical for sales excellence A value-based…
Why the three topics of coaching, change management and stakeholder engagement should be considered more seriously in the development of sales managers and sales professionals identified as high performers. Introduction I identified three topics I considered to be important to sales that were not usually taught or self-selected by salespeople, and that I believed would help outperformance in the long…
Research findings uncover what high-performing salespeople want from their organizations and, just as importantly, what they don’t want. Understanding both categories is critical for organizations and leaders who want to create affective commitment and ultimately retain their best-performing salespeople. As a successful salesperson and a manager of salespeople, I am passionately interested in how high-performing salespeople can be engaged and…
Completed in May 2016, this Masters project investigates links between ethics and education, and sets out to evaluate the impact that longer-term education will have on individual sales behaviour. The aim of this research is to investigate if there is a link between the subject of ethics and education, and to evaluate the impact that longer-term education will have on…
New research identifies how best to handle upselling or cross-sell conversations. “What about this selling situation?” That’s typically the first question we hear whenever we’ve conducted a study that sheds light on the buyer psychology of some critical moment in the purchase cycle. There’s always somebody waiting with the next question that needs to be run through the research gauntlet….
Many people talk about the gap between sales and bid teams, but does that gap really exist, to what degree, why, and what suggestions do people have to close that gap? Research based on cross-functional input from 148 executives seeks to answer these questions. Research methodology The research was carried out through a six-question 360 (survey), circulated via social media…
