Wednesday, September 6th, 2023
My Coaching Promise
Developing a contract between coachee and coach works to improve virtual sales coaching. +
Tuesday, September 5th, 2023
Becoming an effective coach
Following on from our new Sales Tips 101 column, Bob Apollo presents a parallel series of tips for sales managers, starting with the “Keys to effective coaching”. Coaching is perhaps the most important task of any sales manager, and the thing most likely to impact their team’s performance. Here are five principles to bear in mind when developing our ability…
Friday, September 1st, 2023
First-time manager
Navigating the transition from sales to sales management. For many successful and ambitious salespeople, their first move into sales management is perhaps the defining moment in their career. Some will succeed. Some will fail. Some will make the move and then wish they had never abandoned the simpler life of a salesperson. And some will remain perfectly happy avoiding the…
Friday, July 7th, 2023
Scared of change? So, what?
Grant van Ulbrich is Global Director of Sales Transformation at Royal Caribbean Group. His learning journey has taken him via a Master’s in Leading Sales Transformation to a doctorate in sales transformation, a new book, and the creation of a bespoke model for personal change. Q: What motivated you to create a new personal change model for sales? A: I…
Thursday, July 6th, 2023
The top five sales myths
Maybe it’s time to re-examine what you may have always taken for granted. Salespeople are born not made Whilst having confidence, a positive attitude and being generally likeable are all useful traits, they do not guarantee success in sales. The skills required to be effective take years to learn and hone. Too many sellers are thrown in at the deep…
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Embracing all generations in the workplace
This paper has been adapted from the author’s Masters project and discusses how leaders can best cultivate “superpowers” that are applicable to multi-generational organisations and teams. When exploring the different generations, I came across many different descriptions and definitions. To avoid confusion, I have decided to use the definition from Purdue University: The aim of my research has been to…
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
War on attrition
How can effective coaching support the retention of employees within an organisation? The challenge of employee retention and continued commitment to an organisation has no straightforward documented resolution. A key responsibility of any business is to keep its employees happy and motivated, retain them in the company, but also to ensure they make best use of their individual talents. O’Reilly…
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Questions, questions, questions!
How and why we ask questions is important. The twins of curiosity and ignorance Dr Marlys Witte is “a surgeon without hands”1, a researcher and educator of medical students and the self-proclaimed mother of the “medical ignorance” movement. She has not just adopted the Socratic method of educating through questions; her medical education model also develops the capability to be…
Monday, November 28th, 2022
Developing the potential of talented salespeople
Why development is so much more than just training. In “Hiring salespeople with talent” (see pages 6-7), I explored the challenges involved in making good sales hires. Now I want to shift attention to some of the key things we need to do if we are to fully develop the potential of the talented salespeople that we have just hired….
Thursday, September 29th, 2022
Making conflict work
While conflict needs to be managed well, it can also be productive. Conflict is a frequent challenge among business relationships with customers, partners and suppliers. Inside organisations, conflicts within teams and cross-functionally are also common, yet sales professionals often feel ill-equipped to manage conflict well. Unresolved conflict can spread and grow, and result in stress and well-being issues for those…
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022
Measure behaviours as well as outcomes
Only 25% of sales organizations are directly measuring sales behaviours that drive sales success, claims ValueSelling Associates. “Our research findings mean that 75% of sales teams are driving down the interstate with their focus fixed on the rear-view mirror,” President and CEO, Julie Thomas tells the Journal. +
Monday, January 10th, 2022
TOTAL Coaching
Developing and implementing a coaching culture within a sales environment to effect real transformation in coaching across your organisation. Throughout my career in sales leadership with SKF, the Swedish-based world leader in supply of bearings, seals and rotating equipment solutions, I have considered the importance of continual improvement in individual and team performance to be a fundamental element towards success….
Monday, January 10th, 2022
Creating an effective coaching culture
How embedded is coaching in your organisation? Let’s explore the fundamental question first: does coaching work and is it worth investing in a coaching culture? The use of coaching has increased, complementing established learning interventions and the research evidence of its effectiveness is robust. A recent review of quantitative studies concluded that workplace coaching does show a good effect size…
Monday, January 10th, 2022
Is coaching the critical sales management skill?
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…
Monday, July 26th, 2021
The gift of anxiety
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…
Monday, July 26th, 2021
Establishing the foundations of a coaching culture
The ability to coach is a key attribute that distinguishes truly effective first-level sales managers from the pack. What’s the one thing that separates truly effective first-level sales managers from the rest? You can make a case for their ability to motivate or to create an environment of responsibility and accountability, but there’s good reason to believe that their ability…
Friday, February 26th, 2021
Team tenure
Why understanding team tenure can be a key to healthy sales-team dynamics and a rapid alignment of teams. The longer a team has spent together with the same composition of team members, the more harmonious interpersonal relationships become. The shared experience builds trust and psychological safety, leading to smoother team processes, more effective use of resources and increased team performance…
Tuesday, November 10th, 2020
Mapping out the solution
Here’s how to use “systemic intelligence” collaboratively. The high-pressured, action-oriented sales environment usually leaves little time for sales professionals to step back and reflect on their work. Managing a multitude of customer and internal relationships, complex sales cycles, and chronic disruption means we need robust problem-solving skills. Unfortunately, “mindtraps” have formed through human evolution. Once a matter of survival to…
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
Moving from “I” to “We”
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,…
Wednesday, June 26th, 2019
Just call me Coach
How developing a coaching culture can make you a “destination employer”. How to embed a coaching culture was a dominant theme at the most recent Sales Learning & Development conference. Sales learning and development is not just about teaching skills; it’s about engaging and motivating the whole organization to be passionate about learning and development, and adopting a coaching culture…