Friday, November 6th, 2020
THE CHANGING FACE OF B2B SALES
The pandemic has understandably forced a rapid…
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….
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
ABM and KAM in tandem
Account-based marketing is increasingly recognised as a highly effective approach to working with key accounts, so is of major interest to key account managers looking for new approaches. November’s KAMBP explored how to use ABM and KAM together. Bev Burgess, Senior Vice President & Practice Lead, and Dave Munn, President and CEO, introduced ITSMA (the Information Technology Services Marketing Association)…
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
Cross-cultural sales into China
This study, adapted from a 2018 University of Portsmouth Business School MA Sales Management dissertation, explores the adaptive sales model and its suitability for cross-cultural sales into China. The author was surprised at the lack of cross-cultural awareness and understanding in global sales and communication, with even established exporting enterprises lacking an ability to fully engage and communicate effectively with…
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
Acumen, agility and sales archetypes
Nick de Cent is in conversation with Philip Stylund, discussing sales strategy post-COVID-19 and the blended world of the future. Nick de Cent: In these times of great uncertainty, do you predict that the rush to online sales that we’re seeing will further broaden the divide between simple and complex sales in B2B? And what I mean by that is:…
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:…
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…
Wednesday, September 11th, 2019
Co-creating value via Fujitsu HXD
Reporting from the Cranfield KAM Best Practice Forum 20 June 2019. Key account managers and purchasing professionals are increasingly recognising the importance of co-creating value and the key part that the latest technology can have in facilitating that. So, the most recent KAM Best Practice Forum at Cranfield University decided to focus on how Key Account Managers can embrace technology…
Tuesday, September 10th, 2019
Why seamless is important
Success metrics are refocusing around customer experience….
Thursday, March 21st, 2019
Alliance sales: the third-generation sales model
Alliances between organisations can be marriages made in heaven, or they can go horribly wrong…. When organisations are first formed, whether in garages in Silicon Valley or back bedrooms in Bangalore, the original founders use the first-generation sales model to grow the business. That is, they “sell to” people. They sell to fellow enthusiasts to convince them to join the…
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…
Friday, April 28th, 2017
Sales Management: Strategy, Process and Practice
Authors Bill Donaldson, Javier Marcos Cuevas, Régis Lemmens Professional selling and sales management have become more complex and multifaceted than ever before, but also a more exciting and stimulating function and profession. Sales Management provides a comprehensive introduction to selling and sales management. Packed full of insightful real-world case studies, the fully updated and revised fourth edition of this highly…
Saturday, January 21st, 2017
Aligning Sales and Business
Sales Eductors Academy quotes a “recent study”…
Tuesday, November 29th, 2016
Sales talent: the final profit frontier – part 1
Hiring, developing and retaining salespeople have been something of a dark art. It’s often expensive and inefficient, but new talent-management techniques are bringing us into the 21st century. Skilled professionals have credibility with customers, and you can’t afford to compromise the credibility of your brand by sending second-best into the field Dr Beth Rogers In their 2015 Harvard Business Review…
Tuesday, November 29th, 2016
Getting the right salespeople on the bus
Jim Collins’ Good to Great has been the inspiration for many CEOs who are determined to elevate their companies from run-of-the-mill to lasting greatness. There are many lessons to be learned from the book but one of the most significant is the idea that, before organisations can stand a chance of realising their potential, they must get the right people…
Saturday, October 31st, 2015
Align or die?
How do we re-engineer the sales and marketing interface for the benefit of our customers? Just as I sat down to write this article my email pinged. I tried to ignore it as I’d just come back from an excellent “Sales-Mind“ workshop that reminded me of the foolishness of multitasking. Then I saw the title – “Brands failing to align…
Saturday, October 31st, 2015
Opening the “third box”
As part of his MSc Professional Practice in Sales Transformation, Sony Mobile’s Russell Keating explores how to unlock more sales through a strategic understanding of his client’s key concerns as well as those of his own organisation. This project relates to work with one of the largest mobile phone operators in Ireland, referred to as the “client” throughout this paper….
Saturday, October 31st, 2015
Increased sales scrutiny: are you ready?
Sales should be a core agent of strategy, not just a vehicle for a given selling methodology. In my career, I have attended many strategy meetings. Very few articulate the implications of espoused strategies for Sales. Moreover, the process for introducing new initiatives often exacerbates the separation of the “strategists” from the “doers” in the field. The typical process is…