Asking service people to sell? Easier said than done!

/
Asking service people to sell? Easier said than done!

Over recent months, we have noticed an increasing number of requests along the following lines….. “How can we get our field service teams to contribute more to our sales efforts?” This community often have more regular access to key customer stakeholders. They are also typically regarded with a level of trust by customers that many salespeople could only dream of. There is therefore an impeccable logic to exploring how this community can help identify and progress additional new sales opportunities with existing customers.

However, this logic faces one massive obstacle…

Read More

Dragging Sales Development out of the Dark Ages - Highlights

/
Dragging Sales Development out of the Dark Ages - Highlights

We recently ran our latest event titled "Dragging Sales Development out of the Dark Ages".

The rationale for the event was the fact that for far too long now, organisations across the world have invested significant sums of money on sales development programmes without getting the value from their investment that we think they should. This is largely down to outdated approaches to development that were formulated in the last century but are no longer fit for purpose in the 21st century.

We believe that it is time for this to change and so we gathered a crowd of over 40 like-minded sales leaders together in London to share insights and ideas on how we think this will happen. 

Read More

If you are going to do it, do it right - Developing Sales Capability

/
If you are going to do it, do it right - Developing Sales Capability

For too long, training and development has suffered from being seen as a ‘nice to have’. In many cases, it is the first budget to get cut when the purse strings are being tightened. Now I know, given what I do for a living, I might be slightly biased but I don’t get it! Firstly, organisations are made up of people. Secondly, most of these people are constantly being asked to do what they do better, cheaper and faster and finally, no-one is the finished article (or at least no-one has admitted it to me!).  If this is the case, surely boosting the motivation, skill and confidence of an organisation’s people – which is what development is all about - is pretty fundamental.

Read More

Trust me, I am a salesperson!

/
Trust me, I am a salesperson!

To some, the words ‘salesperson’ and ‘trust’ do not belong in the same sentence. Worse still, even the mere mention of the word ‘selling’ or ‘salesperson’ is enough to send some buyers into a spin. Now of course most of us in sales are a touch (OK much) more sophisticated than the old Del Boy image of sheepskin coat, slicked back hair, bling covered hands and the “Alright my son…” opening gambit however there are still many salespeople who seem to miss some of the more subtle and very impactful ways that trust can be both lost and built.

Read More

A demonstration of the merits of thinking 'Big'

/

This time last year, we ran an event about developing elite level sales ability and, as part of the day, talked about the motivation behind achieving targets. Yes salespeople all have sales targets and yes on the whole, salespeople are typically the type of people who are highly motivated to achieve them. However, research shows that peak performance is closely allied to a strong personal connection to goals and targets and while sales targets are obviously a strong driver of action, they are set by the company and therefore the personal attachment is not as strong as it could be. 

Read More