Select the content CATEGORY and/or article TAG from the dropdown menus to find the sales topic you need. Then press the FILTER BUTTON to display list of relevant articles. Use the SEARCH CONTENT field (top left) to search by author or for a specific phrase or word.
Search hundreds of articles on sales by keyword or author's name. Simply enter your search phrase/word and click the search icon.
Tuesday, November 29th, 2016
The GSK bribery scandal rocked pharma when a record fine was handed down in 2014. It has forced the company and the wider industry to reconsider their sales approaches. Just over two years ago the Wall Street Journal reported that UK drug giant GSK’s local subsidiary in China had been found guilty of bribery and fined nearly half a billion…
Saturday, September 3rd, 2016
How a productivity programme for a major bank achieved success through the introduction of a behavioural operating model for branch teams and, most importantly, team managers. Introduction The banking group concerned in this study is a diverse retail and commercial bank with 14,760 branches (more than any other international bank), over 193,000 employees and 102 million customers worldwide. Currently the…
Saturday, September 3rd, 2016
Bob Apollo on Building Scalable Businesses In the majority of sales organisations, a high percentage of sales revenue is generated by the same minority of top sales performers, quarter after quarter. According to research published by the CEB in The Challenger Sale, this performance gap between top salespeople and the rest is amplified in complex, high-value sales environments. They found…
Thursday, April 7th, 2016
The data analysis provided here offers insight into what motivates “account managers”. Motivators are the extrinsic factors that determine whether your salespeople really get up in the morning “ready to rock and roll”’ – or not! The global data in the following charts provide insight into what motivates people from different regions. It will help sales leaders decide whether in…
Thursday, April 7th, 2016
Are you, your team members or your customers relationship driven, achievement driven or growth driven? It makes a difference. Brian Tracy in his many books and tapesI claims that 50% of any sale is a “transfer of enthusiasm”; in other words, it is something quite independent of the skill sets that so many organisations spend so much money investing in….
Thursday, April 7th, 2016
A recent study by global sales and marketing specialists ZS Associates has found that strategically investing in sales force effectiveness (SFE) can boost sales performance for medtech companies by 2-8%. The firm ran a year-long study to measure the effect of SFE initiatives – such as sales territory redesigns, account planning processes, training or coaching initiatives and new compensation structures…
Monday, April 4th, 2016
You may have lost the bid but taking the trouble to find out why helps build trust. There’s a growing interest in the value to be gained by conducting detailed Win-Loss analyses: the statistics we shared in the October 2015 edition of the Journal (see page 58) caught the attention of readers and when they were later shared online. However,…
Saturday, January 30th, 2016
Why does the typical revenue-generation process yield only 2% and how can marginal improvements transform your sales performance? The revenue generation process is typically seen as a series of loosely connected but separate activities by most organisations. When the yields from each step are combined, the resultant efficiency is just 2.1% – see survey results below and page 5 of…
Thursday, January 28th, 2016
Professor Mark Johnston explores the conundrum of the high-performing, low ethics salesperson. Organizations strive to hire, train, develop and enable salespeople to reach a high level of performance. Of course, as every sales manager knows, only a few can truly be considered “high performers”. Research on high-performing salespeople suggests they are different and often require sales managers to “adjust” their…
Thursday, January 28th, 2016
Mapping Motivation – Unlocking the Key to Employee Energy and Engagement by James Sale, Gower, January 2016, 978-1-4724-5927-5, £45 Selling successfully is hugely dependent on motivation and author James Sales seeks to provide the definitive book on the subject – its language and metrics are full of knowledge, insight and practical tips. The contents explore the concept and roots of…
Monday, July 6th, 2015
As part of his MSc Professional Practice in Sales Leadership, Sony Mobile’s Gustavo Mancera describes how research and reflection led to a new mind-set and approach that created differentiation in the marketplace. The problem to be addressed The rapidly changing market affected the entire team´s mind-sets including myself. We had fallen prey to negative mind-sets (Squire, 2009) while struggling to…
Wednesday, July 1st, 2015
Why it has become commonplace for organisations to seek to avoid paying commission earned by salespeople? Commission payments seem so simple in concept: the salesperson wins a deal and the employer pays a certain percentage of its value to reward him or her for this success and the benefit it brings to the company. In reality, incentives are a minefield:…
Saturday, April 11th, 2015
Last year’s spat between Mercedes Formula 1 team drivers has implications for the performance of business teams, a recent study suggests. HOW does a sales manager harness the abilities of two competing star performers in the sales team to best advantage? The manager’s skill at getting the best out of his team could have a significant impact on the fortunes…
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015
What is the relationship between sales ethics and business performance? Professor Mark Johnston takes us through the latest research. From Apple to Volkswagen, the axiom – ethical business is good business – is firmly embedded in today’s corporate culture. While this ethical business model is driven at all levels and throughout the organisation, nowhere is it more important than the…
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015
Is there link between a leader’s character and business performance? Research conducted by Dr Fred Kiel and his team indicates there is. Here, he talks to editor Nick de Cent. NdeC: Can you summarise the link between high-character leaders* and business performance? FK: We studied the lives and leadership skills of over 100 CEOs. We interviewed and surveyed these CEOs,…
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015
Verbal acuity, an achievement-oriented personality, the ability to display situational dominance and inward pessimism are the key attributes of high-performing salespeople compared with their less-successful counterparts, according to a specialist in “sales linguistics”. Writing in Harvard Business Review on 18 March, Steve W Martin asked the question: “What separates high-performing salespeople who exceed their quota from underperformers who miss their…
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015
In the crowded UK office equipment market, what are the chances a manufacturer could double sales through its dealer channel within five years? Not only is it a tough goal but it’s one that Toshiba Tec UK expects to achieve a year ahead of schedule, according to the Indirect Division’s sales director Carl Day. Day attributes much of the success…
