Thursday, April 10th, 2025
Sales Tips 101 – Making a career of sales
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Thursday, April 10th, 2025
The Joy of Learning: seven wisdoms
Why leadership inspiration, collaborative learning, and joy impact us all. Wisdom 1: Learning starts with a curious mind “I have seven wisdoms for you. What you do with them is up to you. The only thing I ask of you is to remember them.” “The first wisdom is about curiosity. Any learning starts with a curious mind. Be curious and…
Wednesday, April 9th, 2025
A Strategic Edge
How an MBA can enhance performance for sales professionals and leaders. In today’s competitive business landscape, exceptional sales performance requires more than persuasive communication and relationship-building skills. As markets become increasingly complex and data-driven, an MBA education can provide a significant competitive advantage for both salespeople and sales leaders. Here, we’ll explores how the strategic framework, analytical capabilities, and leadership…
Wednesday, January 8th, 2025
Firms look to step up enablement but Gen Z wary of AI
Investment in enablement tools such as sales content management and automation, training and coaching, buyer engagement, strategy and planning, and recent research is poised to increase, according to a 2024 survey by Seismic, an enablement firm headquartered in San Diego. Generation Enablement Report: The Rise of Enablement’s Influence found that most organisations (89%) plan to retain or increase investment next…
Monday, April 22nd, 2024
News in brief April 2024
The Institute of Sales Professionals has announced that two training organisations have joined the ranks of its endorsed training organisations. Competitive Edge is an awardwinning trainer that helps to develop high-performing sales teams and leaders. Meanwhile, Alate Business Growth specialises in business-tobusiness sales training for technology companies, across IT, telecoms, and software as a service (SaaS) in diverse global and…
Monday, April 22nd, 2024
Education inspectorate grades Consalia’s Senior Sales Leadership apprenticeship programme outstanding
Consalia’s Senior Sales Leadership apprenticeship programme has been graded outstanding by UK education inspectorate Ofsted, the sales business school announced recently. The inspection took place over three days in February. Questionnaires were sent in advance to employers and apprentices and the government inspectors also conducted detailed interviews with Consalia’s Academy Team, apprentices, employers, and delivery partners Middlesex University and Runway…
Monday, April 22nd, 2024
Is sales training dead?
Is sales training dead? I recall reading a blog about the issue on LinkedIn back in 2016. Of course, it sought to refute this premise. That was then, but what of today? Well, the sales landscape has undoubtedly moved on, driven by evolving business practice, technology, and the advance of relatively new disciplines such as sales enablement. Firstly, the traditional…
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…
Tuesday, September 5th, 2023
Opening a conversation
Continuing our new series of sales tips, Bob Apollo discusses five things to bear in mind when preparing for your next significant sales conversation. How we plan and prepare for a sales conversation has a huge impact on the outcome. Preparation: +
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…
Monday, September 4th, 2023
In brief
RAIN Group launches Self- Study+ for sales teams Global sales training company RAIN Group announced the launch of Self- Study+ on 9 August. The new offering combines the “advantages of self-paced learning with the power of practice, feedback, and collaboration”, according to the Boston-headquartered company. The programme features 77 modules across critical skill areas and 11 standard learning journeys. Sellers…
Monday, September 4th, 2023
Royal recognition for UK postal service’s sales training programmes
Royal Mail Group has won two prestigious awards for its sales training programmes delivered in partnership with sales business school Consalia. The UK postal service provider will receive two Princess Royal Training Awards, celebrating its “Inspiring Sales Mindsets for Growth Programme” and “B2B Sales Professional Degree Apprenticeship”. Established in 2016 and delivered by the City & Guilds Foundation, the Princess…
Thursday, July 6th, 2023
Build deeper connections
Understanding best practices for a buyer-centric sales approach. A buyer-centric approach to selling is table stakes in today’s competitive business landscape – and yet, buyer-centric approaches across companies and industries seem to be vastly different. It begs the question: How do sales leaders and sales representatives interpret buyer-centricity and are they aligned on its crucial components? To further explore this…
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
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…
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Salespeople and leaders differ on key aspects of buyer centricity
Recent research highlights differences in how sales leaders and sellers view the best ways to engage with prospects, but the majority agree that buyer centricity is the right approach overall – that’s according to a study conducted by sales training specialist ValueSelling Associates and L&D publication Training Industry. A significant majority of sales leaders (61%) believe it makes sense to…
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Three sales books with a difference
A trio of important research-based sales books are in the pipeline this year and all are well worth checking out for different reasons. Book 1 The first of these is Transforming Sales Management: Lead Sales Teams Through Change by Grant Van Ulbrich, set for launch on 3 May 2023 along with the “Scared-So What” personal change app, which will be…
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Does your organisation have buyer-centric sales skills?
Fewer than half of sales leaders and…
Monday, November 28th, 2022
Too many cooks…
How a single sales methodology can help to reap global benefits I am constantly amazed at how quickly companies that invest in a sales training methodology are led astray and lose out on the benefits it can deliver. Often, as the roll-out draws to a close, someone proposes a new “shiny toy”. Incredibly, they go for it, short-circuiting all the…