Thursday, July 10th, 2025

Sales Tips 101 – Supporting your own wellbeing and motivation

Salespeople have agency in shaping their own experience. Here are five simple steps individual salespeople can take to support their own well-being and motivation: Managers want their people to succeed, but they can’t support what they can’t see. Proactive, honest communication is a key ingredient in creating a healthy sales team dynamic. +


Tuesday, July 8th, 2025

Don’t crash and burn out!

Latest Insights into wellbeing, motivation and sales performance. Sales performance is not just a function of skills and strategy; the wellbeing and motivation of salespeople profoundly influence it. Recent research and thought leadership converge on a clear message: sales teams thrive when their psychological needs are met, their stress is managed, and they feel motivated beyond just hitting a number…. 


Tuesday, July 8th, 2025

A science-based guide to motivating your team

The authors explore three theories every sales leader should master. Sales motivation isn’t rocket science – it’s far more complicated than that! While rockets (at least on the macro scale) follow predictable laws of physics, human motivation operates in the comparatively much messier realm of psychology, where individual differences, organizational contexts, and market pressures collide in unpredictable ways. Yet, too… 


Monday, July 7th, 2025

The human factor

Exploring the vital relationship between wellbeing, motivation, and retention in modern sales. In too many sales environments, performance and productivity are largely seen as endpoints to be optimised through processes, metrics, tools, and training. However, there’s a growing recognition that sustainable sales performance is deeply rooted in human factors – in the wellbeing and motivation of sales professionals. I hope… 


Monday, July 7th, 2025

Motivation– a strategic imperative

Exploring the hidden driving force behind sales excellence. Why should we care about how motivated our salespeople are? Do we understand what motivates someone to do their best? How do the drivers of motivation vary between individuals, and can our best intentions demotivate our people? This edition of the Journal explores these questions. I think we can all agree that… 


Monday, February 19th, 2024

What salespeople need to succeed in a new sales role

Of course, every new salesperson needs to have a clear understanding of what they are selling. But product knowledge is never enough to ensure success. Bob Apollo lists five things every new (and existing) salesperson needs to master: +


Monday, February 19th, 2024

Five things to consider before stepping up to a sales management role

For many salespeople, their obvious career goal is to advance into sales management. Unfortunately, this can turn into a frustrating move. Here’s what aspiring sales managers need to consider: +


Friday, October 13th, 2023

Addressing individual underperformance

Sales managers have a responsibility to identify, understand and address the root causes of individual underperformance in their teams. Here are a few of the key considerations: +


Friday, October 13th, 2023

Build a go-to-market coalition

By 2026, B2B organizations that unify their… 


Friday, October 13th, 2023

Establishing your own personal development plan

No matter how comprehensive the training programme provided by their employer, salespeople need to establish and implement their own personal development plan. Bob Apollo highlights a few key considerations: +


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Time for CPD

Do salespeople have time to learn? Salespeople hold extensive power, influencing buying decisions that potentially have significant commercial impact and which can dictate both the future trajectory of their customers and the success of their own organisations. With so much responsibility falling on the shoulders of their salespeople, why then don’t more companies embed a learning culture within their sales… 


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Don’t sacrifice effectiveness

Five negative effects of sales efficiency. Efficiency in the sales process is a good thing, right? Well, it all depends on what you mean by “efficiency”. The definition of “efficient” is: “achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.” In parentheses, the Google dictionary notes, “(especially of a system or machine).” And it’s that last part, I want to… 


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Negotiation as a trading process

How to dodge three avoidable mistakes when closing a deal. It is as if it were yesterday. I can still see their faces: stern, unbending, implacable. The setting was innocuous enough: a small meeting room in the hotel for which I was sales director. On one side of the table, I sat with the general manager, and on the other… 


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Addressing underperformance

Underperformance is not just about the individual; it can be a structural issue too. It would be an exceptionally lucky or gifted sales manager who has never had to address the issue of underperformance at some stage in their management career. Sometimes the causes appear to be external – changes in the market environment over which we have little influence… 


Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Coaching conversations

My Coaching Promise ensures sales professionals have better sales conversations. In today’s hybrid world of both face-to-face and virtual customer conversations, ensuring the best of the limited time we get with customers is paramount. I find it odd that it’s taken for granted that sports professionals have multiple coaches, yet sales professionals struggle to get time with their managers, who… 


Friday, September 30th, 2022

2022 8.5 Research Review – edited by Jeremy Noad

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, capability development, behavioural studies, and systems and tools…. 


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. +


Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022

2022 8.3 Research Review – edited by Jeremy Noad

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…. 


Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022

The secret power of introverts

Too shy to sell? Why organisations need introverts. Do you ever hear the words “introvert” and “sales” in the same sentence and wonder if it is even possible to be successful in sale and shy or introverted? The conventional stereotype is that sales is an extrovert’s playground, but the reality is that this is simply not true.Countless industry giants are… 


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…