Monday, February 13th, 2023
Talent to thrive: inspiring cultural change
How can sales leaders inspire cultural change so sales talent can thrive? Participants and speakers from leading organisations such as BT, SAP, Sharp, UCAS and Vodafone came together at the London Stock Exchange on 1 December 2022 for Consalia’s 17th annual Global Sales Transformation event to discuss professional development for sales teams and individuals, as well as the wider sales profession. …
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…
Tuesday, January 11th, 2022
The power of relationships and purpose
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…
Tuesday, November 10th, 2020
Advice for KAMs during Covid
Reports from Cranfield Key Account Management Forum’s online series. Staying positive and focused in uncertain times Andy Bounds, a leading sales communications expert, advocates putting emphasis on creating “positivity and productivity”. Using the “Yes, if…” technique allows individuals and teams to focus on the key few outcomes that are needed to make an objective achievable and then ensure that those…
Friday, December 13th, 2019
Aligning KAM with procurement
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…
Wednesday, June 26th, 2019
Coaching the high-performing key account manager
Highly skilled, highly capable key account managers are essential for any organisation seeking to transform to a KAM culture. As more organisations realize that having a strong KAM capability is an absolute necessity to manage the customer base where most of their business resides, increasing focus is being placed on finding those key “few things” that guarantee success. Through research…
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…
Tuesday, June 25th, 2019
Comedy and coaching culture at APS conference
Two half-day programmes explored the interrelated issues of performance and talent. Driving improved sales performance via strategic insights and best practices was top of the agenda for delegates at a morning conference for APS members and guests at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 16 May. An afternoon conference focused on developing sales talent. Speakers included a mix of company…
Wednesday, March 27th, 2019
Technology is driving servitisation
This report from Cranfield’s KAM and Strategic…
Wednesday, December 13th, 2017
Record attendance at UK’s National Sales Conference
The National Sales Conference, which is supported by the Journal, has broken previous records for attendance, exhibitor numbers and sponsorship, organisers Lincoln West claim. This year’s event took place at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena on 30 November. Now in its fourth year, the conference saw some 600 delegates attend a packed programme of presentations including a keynote by celebrity sports coach…