Wednesday, April 24th, 2024

5 essential steps for targeting customers

Researching prospects can be a time-consuming activity but is essential to success. Used judiciously, AI can help streamline the process. Then it’s time to make contact… See Sales Tips 101 “Opening a conversation” +


Wednesday, April 24th, 2024

How to establish trust with customers

Trust plays a major role in our prospective customer’s decision-making. Here are a few of the most important ways in which salespeople can establish trust: +


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Electric superbike company appoints legendary CRO

Electric superbike manufacturer Verge Motorcycles has appointed business and retail visionary George Blankenship as its new Chief Revenue Officer. With a career spanning more than 40 years, Blankenship is known for developing acclaimed retail strategies for world renowned brands such as software and computer maker Apple and electric car manufacturer Tesla. “Motorcycles have been manufactured with the same underlying format… 


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Trust unlocks online sales

A new report from “trust platform for digital commerce” Forter has found “alarming rates of false declines, cart abandonment, and trust issues” in online shopping. The 2023 Consumer Trust Premium Report explores the relationship between consumer shopping habits and brand trust. Over 73% of UK consumers have had a negative online shopping experience, with high rates of false declines (14%),… 


Thursday, July 6th, 2023

Build deeper connections

Understanding best practices for a buyer-centric sales approach. A buyer-centric approach to selling is table stakes in today’s competitive business landscape – and yet, buyer-centric approaches across companies and industries seem to be vastly different. It begs the question: How do sales leaders and sales representatives interpret buyer-centricity and are they aligned on its crucial components? To further explore this… 


Thursday, April 20th, 2023

Salespeople and leaders differ on key aspects of buyer centricity

Recent research highlights differences in how sales leaders and sellers view the best ways to engage with prospects, but the majority agree that buyer centricity is the right approach overall – that’s according to a study conducted by sales training specialist ValueSelling Associates and L&D publication Training Industry. A significant majority of sales leaders (61%) believe it makes sense to… 


Thursday, April 20th, 2023

Does your organisation have buyer-centric sales skills?

Fewer than half of sales leaders and… 


Monday, February 13th, 2023

Customers are demanding much more

As buyers become ever more demanding, companies… 


Friday, September 30th, 2022

Cranfield KAM Forum (Reports from Q2 2022)

“Putting the customer at the heart” by Mark Bailey Rolls-Royce plc is a company that deals with power and propulsion and should not be confused with the motor-car company, which is entirely separate. Rolls-Royce plc provides power and propulsion systems for land, sea, and air, including nuclear submarines, military and civil aircraft, and major data centres. All of its systems… 


Tuesday, January 11th, 2022

Cranfield KAM Forum online

Reports from the Q2 and Q3 sessions Getting inside the head of a buyer (or what techniques and tips can you adopt to improve your commercial strategic negotiations?) John Viner-Smith has a Master’s in International Purchasing, and has been a senior category manager at JP Morgan, Dixons Stores Group and BP. He is a Founding Partner at Amplius Partners and… 


Friday, November 26th, 2021

Looking to 2025

Way ahead 50% of chief sales officers… 


Friday, November 26th, 2021

Technology

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 same space caused many people to rethink what is important to them, leading… 


Friday, November 26th, 2021

The Consultants

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 Q:… 


Friday, November 26th, 2021

The Academics

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… 


Friday, November 26th, 2021

No going back

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… 


Monday, July 26th, 2021

BUYERS’ PERCEPTIONS DIFFER FROM SELLERS’

65% OF SELLERS SAY THEY “ALWAYS” PUT… 


Friday, April 23rd, 2021

B2B BUYERS PREPARED TO SPEND $1M+ ONLINE

DESPITE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM THAT BIG-TICKET SALES REQUIRE… 


Tuesday, May 26th, 2020

Decision contentment or buyer’s remorse?

Identifying a B2B buyer’s post-decision “cognitive states” – consonance and dissonance – and how to accommodate them. Cognitive dissonance is experienced when a person suffers from the unpleasant and conflicted state of being “in two minds about something” – in other words, concurrently holding two or more contradictory cognitions (ie, perceptions, attitudes or beliefs). The concept became popularised among marketers… 


Tuesday, September 10th, 2019

Growing together (part 2)

Following up on our previous article in last issue of IJST, we continue the discussion on how to best work with your strategic customers to help create joint solutions for growth. What do the best do differently to create joint solutions? Leading companies that excel at collaboratively creating value with their customers are not trying to do a thousand things… 


Tuesday, June 25th, 2019

Growing together

How to work with strategic customers to create joint solutions for growth. Article summary Persistent, disruptive forces impacting profitable growth are intensifying, and as a result, companies in many industries face slower growth and accelerating commoditization of product and service margins. Given marketplace complexity and dynamic shifts in how customers buy, traditional business models are threatened and new strategies and…