In my recent survey on coaching preferences, the majority surprised me by favouring the enabling coaching style, e.g. “How well did you think the call went, have you identified any issues we can focus on to build a need to change?” This inclination towards enabling coaching was unexpected. Probably because I hear many conversations about the need to be pragmatic and use directive or guided coaching methods. Sales managers often resort to directive approaches, positioning themselves as superheroes swooping in to save the day—leaving little room for developmental coaching. Then I had my lightbul ..read more

Last week we examined how an effective ICP can help you identify who will be open to a conversation. That conversation starts by trying to help the potential customer identify a reason to do something—to change from their current solution. Many people will say that at this stage you are looking to discover a pain/need, and one phrase that keeps cropping up is “What would be the impact…?” Guess what? As someone who is trying to sell with a buyer’s perspective, I see a potential issue with this phrase. Rather than try and explain, I thought I would try and get you, the reader, to discover for yo ..read more

Results of our recent poll indicated that the top two challenges faced by sales organisations are “finding new prospects” and “engaging with customers early”. This isn’t surprising in today’s increasingly challenging sales environment, and perhaps controversially, they are two sides of the same coin. In order to effectively find new prospects you need to engage with them early in their buying cycle, often before they have actively started a buying cycle. The challenge here is identifying what you can say that will compel them to talk to you. Before considering various outreach strategies, you ..read more

In previous stages of our journey together to sell with a buyer’s perspective, we noted that the key drivers for change fall into two categories: risk and opportunity. In both cases, we said to highlight quantifiable impact as this transforms theoretical debates into real-life business concerns. Key to this transition is getting comfortable with the skill that no one likes to discuss: “Business Acumen”. Traditionally, sales success hinged on behavioural traits like confidence, “the gift of the gab”, and product expertise. But high performers possess a more distinct trait: “business smarts”. Th ..read more

In my experience, whether developing large-scale programs for enterprise clients or focused tactics for startups, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern: the insistence on having black and white answers for every situation. For example: Give me a qualification model that guarantees I only sell to people who will buy. Tell me how I should behave in front of a potential investor. What are the components of a compelling presentation? The list goes on. Many experts are happy to provide a one-size-fits-all solution for these scenarios. The problem with that is these solutions will only work in som ..read more

Ask yourself: how much time do you, or your company, spend understanding your competitors, doing a feature-by-feature comparison, price comparison, SWOT analysis, etc? Having built all this valuable competitive insight, who do you then share it with? Do you “trash the competition” in front of the customer? Do you create one of those wonderful feature comparison tables where your company has mostly s and your competitors have one or more s? Everything we do should help the Buyer navigate their Buying Process. Let’s look at the scenarios where competitors may be introduced, and explore a strateg ..read more

Previously I focused on the psychology of change and the challenges faced by sales executives in translating awareness into intent. Now, let’s explore the crucial journey from intent to action. What drives us personally often hinges on a shift from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have” scenario. Consider the familiar example of submitting a tax return. Despite knowing the annual deadline, many procrastinate until the last minute. Knowing the importance and having a desire to be organised are insufficient drivers—urgency is needed to make it compelling. Building a business case Turning intent into ..read more

When it comes to change, logic often takes a backseat to emotion. Consider climate change—scientists can present an abundance of logical and factual evidence, yet it’s only when we experience extreme weather personally that the reality hits home. The relationship between emotion and change exists in the business world too. Whilst we’re happy to utilize logic to make a decision, the trigger to consider that decision will always be emotional. So, what does this mean for us as Sales Executives? It means that understanding the emotional triggers for change is paramount. The Psychology behind chang ..read more

We can all agree that, in sales, the buyer is the central figure, and successful engagement starts with effective discovery. For clarity, when I say ‘discovery’ I mean ‘the buyer discovers’. I’m not talking about sales qualification discovery, so forget BANT, MEDDIC or any other qualification model usually associated with a series of “discovery questions”. Discovery is about getting your stakeholders to discover what they need to know to generate consensus around the need to change, what change looks like, who to buy from and actually to commit. So, let’s shift the paradigm – it’s not about sa ..read more

Pipeline generation has got harder, partly because buying has got easier. People are less willing to have conversations with sales executives, perceiving them to have limited value to offer. This has been propelled by the digitalisation of outreach and the disintermediation of routes to market. Most organisations want to mimic the D2C (direct-to-consumer) model which has been so successful in consumer sales that it has become the driving model for business sales. In an oversimplification, you could argue that just like the D2C model, B2Bs should let the consumer find the right supplier themsel ..read more