Friday, March 13th, 2026

A question of (purchase) complexity

In a world where technology has outpaced the theory, how do we define a new operating framework for sales and marketing? Here is a question that, in my view at least, should not still need asking in 2026: what is the actual difference between marketing and sales? Ask ten senior commercial leaders and you will get ten different answers. Ask… 


Friday, March 13th, 2026

Sales Leadership 101 – Are sales and marketing aligned around the customer?

Use this checklist to assess your current interface with marketing – and the customer. If you can’t answer “yes” to the following questions or don’t know the answers, it may be time to revisit the alignment between sales and marketing in your organisation – and your customer focus. 1. Go-to-market strategy 2. Buyer confidence and customer focus 3. KPIs, accountability… 


Friday, March 13th, 2026

A game of two halves

Are sales and marketing functions strategically aligned to optimise business? We asked a range of experts – practitioners, academics and consultants – six questions about the interaction of sales and marketing in a B2B environment. We sought their views on how well sales and marketing organisations typically collaborate to support the aims of a business. We asked them how the… 


Friday, March 13th, 2026

Building bridges between sales and marketing

For businesses to thrive, sales and marketing need to reforge their relationship. I’ve been writing about sales and sales management since the mid-1980s – that’s around 40 years. For almost 20 years, I was heading up a marketing communications agency. So, I’ve observed the sales and marketing relationship from both perspectives. During much of that time it is fair to… 


Friday, March 13th, 2026

A strategic approach to ABM

ABM Is no longer a marketing tactic; it’s a commercial operating model. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has an identity crisis, but not because it is losing relevance. Quite the opposite. ABM has become so commercially potent that describing it as a marketing approach is no longer accurate.  In nine years of running the Global ABM Conference, we have witnessed ABM evolve… 


Friday, March 13th, 2026

A critical new mandate for marketing

What if marketing, sales, sales enablement, and customer success align around a mandate to eliminate barriers to buyer confidence and ensure customers achieve their desired business. There’s a growing recognition that the challenge in complex B2B sales isn’t just about creating demand or building pipeline. The challenge lies in ensuring that we eliminate the barriers to buyer confidence – before,… 


Friday, March 13th, 2026

Beyond the “war”: 20 years of research on the sales and marketing interface

20 years on from HBR’s seminal “Ending the War” paper, how can business leaders align sales and marketing to maximise market performance? When Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, and Sujay Krishnaswamy published “Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing” in Harvard Business Review (2006), they gave managers a language for an enduring organisational tension. Sales and marketing, they argued, were structurally… 


Monday, November 24th, 2025

Selling strategic investments

How to use capital budgeting as a sales methodology. Abstract Capital budgeting is a fundamental process in corporate finance involving the evaluation and selection of long-term investments that are in line with a company’s strategic objectives. When employed as a sales methodology, capital budgeting helps sales representatives present their products and services as strategic investments to potential clients. This approach… 


Thursday, April 10th, 2025

Sales Tips 101 – Making a career of sales

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Tuesday, April 8th, 2025

Making a career of sales

There is no doubt that sales can be an excellent and satisfying career. As a reader of this Journal, I hope that you already believe this as strongly as I do. I am encouraged by the work being done by a growing number of schools, educational establishments and bodies like the UK’s Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP) to establish and… 


Tuesday, April 8th, 2025

A global sales playbook

Why winning globally starts with one consistent sales methodology. Global sales success demands precision, alignment and a relentless focus on delivering value. Yet many sales organizations expand internationally without a unified plan. This haphazard approach leads to fragmented strategies, inconsistent messaging and unpredictable results. To succeed globally, companies need a single, consistent playbook built on a proven sales methodology. This… 


Friday, January 10th, 2025

Five key insights into great KAMs

A major research study uncovers insights into what differentiates top-performing KAMs from the rest. It finds many organisations are focusing on the wrong things in their efforts to improve KAM performance. Key account managers (KAMs) may represent a small fraction of the sales force, but their impact on sales outcomes is disproportionately significant. Despite extensive research on general sales effectiveness,… 


Friday, January 10th, 2025

The AI advantage in KAM

How AI can help to create ideas and boost efficiency for key account managers. Implementing a strategic KAM plan that generates profitable growth for both the supplier and the key customer is notoriously difficult. As consultants and advisers to hundreds of key account managers working in multiple organisations and varied industries, we see talented managers struggle to be consistently effective… 


Wednesday, September 18th, 2024

An open letter to supplier CEOs: do you want a huge competitive edge?

Rethink your selling strategy and shift it to a value-based KAM business model. We all know that we are operating in an increasingly complex and competitive marketplace. As such, it is imperative for suppliers to adapt their sales strategies to maintain relevance in order to drive growth. The traditional sales models that once fuelled success are rapidly becoming obsolete. Today,… 


Monday, February 19th, 2024

KAM in 2024

2024 is going to be challenging, so what are the significant issues for KAMs this year? We asked some respected commentators. What a decade it has been so far: a global pandemic, war in Europe and the Mediterranean, increasing geopolitical uncertainty and uncoupling of global supply chains, the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (for good and ill), recession in major… 


Thursday, April 20th, 2023

Research Review – edited by Jeremy Noad 9.2 2023

The research review aims to help readers keep up to date with recently published research on sales-related topics. The review highlights short abstracts of academically peer-reviewed research. This selection of published research is from a range of academic journals. In this edition, the abstracts include four themes that focus on sales performance, customer management, and behavioural studies. Sales performance Salesperson… 


Tuesday, February 14th, 2023

Research Review – edited by Jeremy Noad 9.1 2023

The research review aims to help readers keep up to date with recently published research on sales-related topics. The review highlights short abstracts of academically peer-reviewed research. This selection of published research is from a range of academic journals. In this edition, the abstracts include four themes that focus on sales performance, customer management, behavioural studies, and systems and tools…. 


Friday, September 30th, 2022

Cranfield KAM Forum (Reports from Q2 2022)

Cranfield KAM Forum has now restarted face-to-face sessions in parallel with its online seminars. The success and popularity of the online seminars has demonstrated that there is benefit from them continuing in parallel with the face-to-face sessions. As always, the speakers and subject were chosen to be particularly relevant to key account managers building and maintaining business in the current… 


Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022

Cranfield KAM Forum online

Reports from Q1 2022 While the Cranfield KAM Forum is planning to restart face-face meetings in late 2022, the success and popularity of the online seminars has demonstrated that there is a benefit from them continuing in parallel with face-to-face sessions. The speakers and subject were chosen to be particularly relevant to key account managers building and maintaining business in… 


Tuesday, January 11th, 2022

Cranfield KAM Forum online

Reports from the Q2 and Q3 sessions While things are slowly returning to normal, the Cranfield KAM Forum seminars are continuing to complement the regular face-to face meetings that will resume when it is safe to do so. The webinars continue to address both strategic and operational themes and personal development topics of interest for key account managers. In this…