Friday, April 29th, 2022
Digital evolution in sales: making sense
BY 2025: 80% OF B2B SALES INTERACTIONS…
Tuesday, January 11th, 2022
The power of relationships and purpose
Digital is enhancing the way we manage business and sales organisations, but analytics are underpinned by relationships and human behaviours. The value tied up in customer relationships is vast but hard to measure; purpose is now a profit centre and predictable human behaviours can help us to forecast sales more accurately. These were just three of the key takeaways from…
Monday, January 10th, 2022
TOTAL Coaching
Developing and implementing a coaching culture within a sales environment to effect real transformation in coaching across your organisation. Throughout my career in sales leadership with SKF, the Swedish-based world leader in supply of bearings, seals and rotating equipment solutions, I have considered the importance of continual improvement in individual and team performance to be a fundamental element towards success….
Monday, January 10th, 2022
Character to lead
We interviewed Kelly Garramone and Phil Styrlund to understand how character is a key driver of organisational success in sales. They explained how sales organisations can take part in some ground-breaking research that will drive performance. What is character science? Pioneered by Dr Fred Kiel (amongst others), character science is a new field of study that was born out of…
Monday, January 10th, 2022
Creating an effective coaching culture
How embedded is coaching in your organisation? Let’s explore the fundamental question first: does coaching work and is it worth investing in a coaching culture? The use of coaching has increased, complementing established learning interventions and the research evidence of its effectiveness is robust. A recent review of quantitative studies concluded that workplace coaching does show a good effect size…
Monday, January 10th, 2022
Is coaching the critical sales management skill?
It’s all about time, skills and mindset. Successful sales managers must master a range of important skills. They need to make sure that they recruit the right people and help them to realise their potential, encourage their teams to follow and contribute to the organisation’s learned best practices, ensure that opportunities are well-qualified, that pipelines are well managed and that…
Monday, July 26th, 2021
Establishing the foundations of a coaching culture
The ability to coach is a key attribute that distinguishes truly effective first-level sales managers from the pack. What’s the one thing that separates truly effective first-level sales managers from the rest? You can make a case for their ability to motivate or to create an environment of responsibility and accountability, but there’s good reason to believe that their ability…
Monday, April 26th, 2021
Cultural and emotional barriers which cause resistance to change
Literature review “The true measure of leadership is to confront the anxiety of the people of their time.” This quote by Jacinda Ardern, current Prime Minister of New Zealand, beautifully summarises the essence of leadership and reveals a depth in leadership qualities only acknowledged and explored by a few. Through introspective and autoethnographic work on developing and applying the ability…
Friday, April 23rd, 2021
3 steps to reinventing GTM
How top sales innovators are embedding data and technology throughout their organisations to reimagine sales for the “next normal”. Sales has always been a “sensing” organisation, attuned to changes in customer sentiment, shifts in demand, and the requirements of different buying stages. But those senses are being flooded as customers shift to digital engagement, leaving sellers with more channels to cover…
Friday, February 26th, 2021
CROSS-SELLING SUCCESS POST-MERGER
REALIZING THE FULL POTENTIAL OF CROSS-SELLING AFTER…
Friday, November 6th, 2020
THE CHANGING FACE OF B2B SALES
The pandemic has understandably forced a rapid…
Friday, November 6th, 2020
SIX KEYS TO UNLOCK PROBLEM-SOLVING POTENTIAL
DO RIGID PROCESSES WORK IN TODAY’S WORLD…
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
People-centred change
This project explores a new approach to change management to enable better value for people. “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change” To a certain extent, I agree with this quote, attributed to Einstein, not because it is from a man recognised as a genius, but because it seems to make sense. There is a qualifying aspect in…
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
Igniting a SPARK
How to introduce a collaborative change methodology to further support embedding of a sales academy into an organization. “How will I introduce a collaborative change methodology to further support the embedding of the SPARK Sales Academy into our organisation?” Simon Sinek (2011) tells us to start with “why”. My concern begins to formulate by asking myself, “Why did my sales…
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
Sales and the COVID crisis
We asked leading academics, professional bodies and consultants for their views on how sales leaders can best respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Unprecedented is a word we hear being bandied about a lot since the emergence of the COVID-19 virus. Nevertheless, the situation we all face is indeed unprecedented, and the world will never be exactly the same again, even…
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
On-screen selling
Exploring the surprising benefits of remote selling by video. COVID-19 has suddenly changed the dynamics of selling. Salespeople who normally see prospects and customers in person are scrambling as they explore how to sell remotely. It may be a problem now, but could this be an unforeseen opportunity? Up until nine years ago, we sold our sales consulting services exclusively…
Tuesday, June 25th, 2019
Science missing from most sales transformations, McKinsey
Science is the missing ingredient most sales transformations lack, and advances in the “science” of change such as digital, analytics, and supporting methodologies can increase programmes’ odds of success by three to four times. These are the main conclusions of a new article “Meet the missing ingredient in successful sales transformations: Science” by management consultancy McKinsey. The authors highlight four…
Thursday, May 17th, 2018
The transformation of professional selling
The nature of professional selling has transformed profoundly over the past few decades, resulting in a fundamental redefinition of the role of the sales force. Drawing on a study comprising interview data from 37 senior sales leaders, sales consultants and prominent sales academics from the US, UK and other European countries, I synthesise three key drivers for change and identify…