Monday, April 26th, 2021
Cultural and emotional barriers which cause resistance to change
In the current ever-changing corporate world perennial adaptability is the key to sustainability and culture has become the conceptual foundation which should embrace ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity to ensure organisational success. Culture is not just mandated but it should be shaped at every level of the organisation and “even without a direct mandate from the top, people with passion, persistence…
Monday, April 26th, 2021
Do millennials have a chance?
“When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become a wiser and more inclusive and a better organisation” – Pat Wadors, head of HR at LinkedIn. At SAP, we have set ourselves a target of achieving 10% of young talent in our workforce in South East Asia (SEA) by 2023. This is a two-fold increase from…
Friday, February 26th, 2021
New sales realities
Business leaders need to understand that it’s the fit of People, Process, Pricing, and Partners that drives sales effectiveness. Selling is changing. When managers make decisions based on obsolete assumptions, they fall victim to those who do understand cause-and-effect links between buying and selling. For over a half-century, buying has been framed in terms of a hierarchy-of-effects model: moving a…
Friday, February 26th, 2021
Team tenure
Why understanding team tenure can be a key to healthy sales-team dynamics and a rapid alignment of teams. The longer a team has spent together with the same composition of team members, the more harmonious interpersonal relationships become. The shared experience builds trust and psychological safety, leading to smoother team processes, more effective use of resources and increased team performance…
Friday, February 26th, 2021
Welcome aboard (digitally)!
How sales-enablement platforms can help us make a success of virtual onboarding. One positive to come out of 2020 was the accelerated push for digitalisation. For some, this meant learning to video call friends and family. For others, it meant moving every single work-related process from in-person to online. Now, we’re comfortable with hosting entirely virtual events, conducting virtual sales…
Friday, February 26th, 2021
CROSS-SELLING SUCCESS POST-MERGER
REALIZING THE FULL POTENTIAL OF CROSS-SELLING AFTER…
Monday, November 9th, 2020
Master storyteller
SAP’s Waldemar Adams explains that compelling storytelling is not just for customer communications – it’s vital when communicating internally. Storytelling is enriching the pure facts to add the purpose, to build alignment, and also to forge a communication which lasts, that people can remember and recall, and create an emotion. A long time ago in Germany, a young Waldemar Adams…
Monday, November 9th, 2020
Mind the (skills) gap!
Article summary Finding the time for training and development while meeting customer needs (and achieving bottom line results) is a universal struggle faced by nearly all sales executives. The struggle is especially real for those in the highly competitive IT industry, where rapid strategic and industry change require ever-increasing time and effort to stay “in-the-know”. SAP’s Sales Coaching Team has…
Friday, November 6th, 2020
Focus on strategic planning and sales enablement
Sales methods must change in a post-COVID-19 world. It is often said that people buy from people. Many of the world’s top salespeople have relied on their personality and ability to quickly establish a rapport with customers to become highly successful. While this trend may continue in future, the dynamics of sales have to change dramatically in a post-COVID-19 world….
Friday, November 6th, 2020
SIX KEYS TO UNLOCK PROBLEM-SOLVING POTENTIAL
DO RIGID PROCESSES WORK IN TODAY’S WORLD…
Monday, July 27th, 2020
First apprentices qualify for Level 4
In a major step forward for professional selling, UK professional body the Association of Professional Sales has highlighted the achievements of 15 young salespeople who have become the first to complete a new, nationally recognized apprenticeship in sales. The pioneering 15 have successfully completed the Level 4 apprenticeship for sales executives. They have been trained by their employers and the…
Thursday, July 9th, 2020
What’s it like working in sales?
A career in selling can be vibrant, fast-paced, bold and exciting. It can also be demanding, challenging and subject to long hours in a busy, target-driven environment. But the sales function is the bedrock of any business so, if you’re committed to developing client relationships and providing valuable solutions, sales can be a highly rewarding, dynamic and fulfilling long-term career….
Tuesday, July 7th, 2020
What are sales apprenticeships?
In the UK, sales apprenticeships are programmes that allow people to study for a professional qualification while being paid and receiving on-the-job training. Sometimes, off-site classroom training is also involved. Apprenticeships typically last one to three years. They’re open to anyone over the age of 16 and not in full-time education. As there’s no upper age limit, apprenticeships can be…
Monday, July 6th, 2020
Test yourself with sales competitions
Sales competitions are attracting the attention of students from around the world because they are a great way for sales course participants to showcase themselves in front of prospective employers. Equally, many corporate employers have embraced sales competitions as a convenient way of checking out the best of the new crop of sales talent. Competitors who perform well are likely…
Friday, July 3rd, 2020
How much will I get paid?
Different industries have different pay scales for sales jobs. Research the industries you’re interested in to discover whether they’re a good match for your salary expectations. In the UK, entry-level sales salaries start at between £18,000 and £21,000, and can rise to £28,000 plus commission. The average entry-level salary is around £24,000. As you progress through your career, expect middle…
Thursday, July 2nd, 2020
Why choose sales as a career?
A job in sales can give you the skills to become a future business leader. The skills you need Many people think that to be successful in sales you need to be able to talk. It’s true; being able to communicate well is massively important but the “gift of the gab” is not required now, and frankly, never was. What…
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
Resourceful humans, not just human resources
How to manage and lead through the current crisis with the wisdom of Aristotle. In a recent London Business School poll, we asked an audience of over 1,000 senior executives how as leaders they would like to look back on the current crisis. They could choose from five possible outcomes – for them personally as well as for their organisations:…
Wednesday, March 27th, 2019
From salesperson to sales manager
How to make a successful transition from individual contributor to manager? Project aim The purpose of this project is to examine whether the transition from high-performing salesperson to effective sales manager can be made more successful. As McCall (2010) highlights, there is a big risk to this promotion: “When situations change dramatically, as is the case when a person is…
Thursday, March 21st, 2019
Ten-year-old top performer
It’s easy to make schoolboy errors when you start selling, but ten-year-old Joe Beales is already well on the way to mastering telephone sales, thanks to his dad Kevin, the founder of Newcastle based start-up, Refract, a sales coaching platform. Beales junior has become an internet sensation – with approaching 100,000 views on LinkedIn – after his dad posted a…
Thursday, March 21st, 2019
Consultants suggest how to maximize the lifetime value of your sales force
A recent paper from consultants McKinsey & Co suggest that forward-looking sales leaders can use analytics to enhance performance management by using data to directly link talent management to increased financial value. Authors Eric Buesing, Alexander DiLeonardo, Maria Valdivieso De Uster and Ben Vonwiller suggest companies can apply similar techniques used to calculate long-term customer value to measuring the value…