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Monday, September 30th, 2024
Good governance and a thought-through approach are essential if we are to use AI responsibly I was seven years old when I made my first sale. The family business provided musical education concerts for children, so in the school holidays I was press-ganged in to help. I quickly found that being front-of-house selling merchandise was much more fun than being…
Thursday, September 19th, 2024
Is AI ready to transform sales? From AI-assisted Raybans that can initiate a call (look cool while you’re phoning clients from the beach) to email subject line generators (fill your prospect’s inbox with annoyingly zany emails), AI has been top of the hype charts ever since Chat GPT broke onto the scene almost two years ago (November 2022). Since then,…
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024
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,…
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024
Research by a training company suggests that prospecting advice from US sales and marketing executives has remained notably consistent over the past five years. Key findings highlight the importance of personalization and research, value proposition clarity and creative engagement techniques in successful prospecting. “The sales profession has seen seismic shifts, from the rise of remote sales to the proliferation of…
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024
Business-to-business suppliers are under pressure to respond to “consumer-like” purchasing demands as buyers continue to shift the way they make purchases, a new global survey released on 12 September reveals. At the same time, buyers feel more comfortable with remote and selfserve spending on big-ticket items this year than they did in 2022, according to consultants McKinsey & Co. “E-commerce,…
Monday, April 22nd, 2024
B2B trust research: what’s next? Abstract New academic research on trust will build on insights generated through Mark Hollyoake’s 2020 doctoral thesis (see previous article). They aim to dig deeper into the role of the “Boundary Spanner in relational trust development”, based on eight years of academic research through the University of Southampton. The original research Boundary spanners: What are…
Monday, February 19th, 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…
Friday, October 13th, 2023
By 2026, B2B organizations that unify their…
Wednesday, October 11th, 2023
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
Senior sales leaders from around the globe gathered in London on 7 July to celebrate the forthcoming launch of a unique new book they have created. Leadership Narratives: Reflective Journeys of Sales Professionals is due to be published by leading academic publisher Routledge in December 2023. The sales leaders flew in from as far afield as Nevada and Dubai and…
Monday, September 4th, 2023
Product-led growth seeks to place the product at the epicentre of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion to achieve “lower sales costs, greater product virality, and higher net retention”. As such, the product itself plays a critical role in acquiring, growing, and retaining customers. This approach has traditionally been seen as a more effective way to engage SME businesses, while a…
Thursday, July 6th, 2023
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…
