Is there a “Sales Gene?”  Are salespeople born rather than made?  This debate has been going on for ages and will certainly trouble the Sales community for the years to come.  A recent study, though, from Juanjuan Zhang of MIT Sloan School of Management claims that there is a…

As I find myself, for more than two hours every day, driving to and away from my job, in order to spend this time more productively, I have been listening to audiobooks, most of them related to History.  The last one that I heard, though, was “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”,

On Sunday 9th of June, I was one of the more than sixty thousand people that attended the second consecutive sold-out concert of the British alternative pop-rock band Coldplay in Athens.  Coldplay have been present in the world music scene for more than twenty-five years, with many albums and…

According to a marketing legendary story, in the early 1950s, the Chivas Regal brand of Scotch whiskey was having hard times to gain market share and its sales were low. In a bold move, the owners decided to double its’ price, without changing the whiskey recipe, and as an effect unit sales…

When back in 2008, I was appointed first-line Sales Manager, coming from the role of Sales engineer, for sure I was not prepared for the job in hand, although I thought that I was.  Nearly sixteen years later, I can say that without a doubt, this is one of the most challenging jobs in the…

American football is a very popular sport in the US played between two teams of eleven players each.  The aim of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the opposing teams end zone.  One team is in offence trying to move the ball forward and score, while the other team is…

In Sales, what is better than acquiring one new customer?  The obvious answer is “acquiring more than one new customer”, but is this really the case?  Nowadays, the cost of acquiring new clients has risen dramatically, as it could involve spending on creating content for marketing…

As salespeople, when we are not achieving our targets, we tend to blame the competition, but the harsh reality nowadays is that nearly 50% of all the deals in B2B environment end up in “No decision”.  This means that the prospects prefer to stick with their current status quo, rather than…

Two things are certain in life: taxes and mistakes/failures happening either in a B2B or in a B2C environment.  For the first one, unfortunately, there are not many things that can be done, but as far as the latter is concerned, it is possible to repair the damage, if this sensitive situation…

In his book “The Power of Human”, Adam Waytz, a professor, and psychologist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, narrates an anecdote about an immigrant to the US, who believed that the word “busy” actually meant “good”, because when he asked people, “How are…

What comes to your mind when you think about “sales representative”?  Worst case scenario, manipulation and phoniness are the first words to pop out, based on stereotypes or on bad personal experiences.  If not, then most probably you think about extrovert people briming with…

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to buy something, but after the interaction you had with the salesperson, you felt more confused than before?  I believe that most of us have been involved in circumstances like this, especially when we buy something “technical”, mainly…

About a month ago, a decision was made to replace the house vacuum cleaner that has been around for more than 12 years and get a new one.  After browsing the internet and seeing what the possible options were based on the budget, I visited a known electric appliances retail chain, in order to…

The most probable phrase that is likely to come out from a customer’s lips – apart of course from, “You are expensive!” – is “You are all the same!”.  History has shown that commoditisation is almost certain for every organisation at a given point in time, for several reasons…

In general, people create stereotypes based on a person’s gender, age, nationality, or profession.  These are generalised beliefs reflecting the expectation that one might have about the characteristics and the exhibited behaviours of nearly every person of a particular group.  As far…

One of the things that I like doing most is to read books, but I must admit that in the past few years I’m mostly into e-books. In my Amazon Kindle virtual library, I have downloaded more than four hundred titles, but I would say that nearly half of them were bought through the personal…

In the previous blog post, we discussed about how customer-centricity is defined, the different perceptions between companies and their customers with regards to it and what are the challenges that the organisations are faced with that prevent them from being customer-centric.  The article did…

Although customer-centricity is one of the most mentioned terms in today’s business, it doesn’t mean that is new as a concept.  Back in 1954, Peter Drucker, one of the most influential and widely known thinkers of management, in his book, The Practice of Management, wrote that “it is the…

We all tend to think of ourselves as rational human beings that take decisions based on logical thinking, rather than “irresponsible” people that are governed by emotions.  If this is the case, surely, when it comes to buying, we all prefer to stick to facts and figures, so based on them…

In Sales, some people say that “No” is not the worst thing that you can hear from a customer.  The worst thing that you can hear is, “I will think about it…”, not as a polite way to decline, but rather as a clear statement of indecision.

There has always been a discussion regarding whether the overall impression that a salesperson leaves to the buyer, can play part in the customer’s decision to buy or not.  In the past 25-30 years, the concept of sales charisma has gained considerable interest also in the academic field, as…

When customers do a high sales revenue with a company, this doesn’t automatically mean that they are as profitable, as we may think that they are.  Unfortunately, we tend to pay most of our attention on how much turnover an account does with our organisation, rather than focusing on the…

It is a fact that people like to buy for a number of reasons.  For others, is the feeling of power that they get when buying things, others feel a sense of pleasure and fulfilment, while some, even take pride in buying, especially when they feel that they got a bargain.

According to Greek mythology, Narcissus was a hunter renowned for his beauty, however he scorned those who admired him.  For this reason, Nemesis, attracted him to a fount, where he saw his reflection in the waters and fell in love with it, without being aware that it was just an image. 

Since last Friday afternoon, and for the next two and a half weeks, I will be away from work, due to summer holidays.  This time of the year, as with every vacation period, is always eagerly awaited from everyone, but when it is over, we all agree that it has gone too fast.  So, what is…

A couple of weeks ago at work, I received a mail from one of our partners, the content of which, in my eyes, provided the best proof that value creation is not just a matter of salespeople.  Earlier that week, two of my colleagues from the after sales department paid a visit in our partner’s…

In today’s supercompetitive business environment, one of the newest “battlegrounds” in the continuous search for differentiation are the customer journeys.  By book definition, a customer journey is the set of interactions that a client has with a brand in the process of buying a product…

“What gets measured, gets managed” is not just a phrase in today’s business environment, but is rather an axiom.  As far as Sales is concerned, sales metrics are vital to track, since they provide information that can be used to evaluate whether business goals are realistic, also give…

One of the most genuine dilemmas that companies are faced with is either to make product/services for which customers will be willing to pay a premium for, or to have a cost structure that will allow them to compete at a price that the competition will not be able to.

So, we got a lead, which eventually became a sales opportunity and after negotiations and going back and forth, the deal is finally done.  What’s next then? Well, selling is no longer enough, because the relationship between a supplier and a customer rarely ends when a sale is made.  On…

One of the most difficult tasks that a sales manager is faced with, is whenever asked by the top management to provide sales forecasts.  But why forecasting sales data should be such a problem?  After all, the performance of sales teams is probably the most measurable in an organisation…

A common method that is used to determine the price of a product/service, is the competitor-based pricing model.  This is a relatively straightforward process, in which basic research of the competition is required in order to define the price range, and is also considered a low-risk strategy,

The idea behind “better-faster-cheaper” is widely known, but for those of you that are not familiar with the concept, the premise is that you can choose any two of the above, but you can’t have all three at the same time.

Is it possible to define Value?  How can we measure it? Is there a way to calculate what our products/services worth to our customers?  Nowadays, the ability to pinpoint the value of our offerings to our clients has never been more vital.  Moreover, we constantly hear from…

In the modern Sales environment, competition has grown in numbers and is more aggressive, the differentiated products and services of yesterday are the commodities of today and price issues are a constant problem.  Moreover, according to recent studies, 83% of B2B buyers say that it is very…

Αs sales managers or sales leaders do we let our salespeople to take up more responsibilities/decisions when they are able to, or do we keep telling ourselves that it is not the right time, as they are not ready yet?

To be successful in Sales does someone just has to learn the fundamental components of this profession, or does he/she need to have “built-in” certain characteristics?  In other words: Are good salespeople made or born?

As COVID-19 restrictions have already begun to ease out in most parts of the world, it is now much easier to travel and therefore meet with customers in-person, rather than just sit behind a screen, and have online meetings with them.  This doesn’t mean that online sales meetings are or will…

It is without a doubt that nowadays organisations spend billions of euros every year for their activities in social media and their main justification for these investments is that by attracting more followers, they will eventually increase sales.  On the other hand, in a relevant survey of…

Nowadays, customer experience is more and more considered as one of the main differentiators across industries, but there has also been a large discussion with regards to what actually makes it great.  For some, the answer is having an easy and frictionless journey, for others it is having a…

Have you noticed that when you have heard a song many times, the next time you listen to it, takes fewer opening notes to recognise it?  Why does this happen?  According to Neuroscience, recurring stimuli need less attention to be noticed and are faster and more accurately read or named,

Do you remember when was the last time that you booked a hotel for your vacations or went to a restaurant when visiting a new destination, without first looking at the reviews about it?  Certainly, I don’t!

Nowadays, there is not a single company that does not talk about the importance of being customer-centric, how serious they are about it and how much they invest towards that direction.  The question that arises though is if they are using metrics that their customers would care about or is…

Incentives, rewards, and compensation play a central role in the relationship between employer and employee, hence it is critical for organisations to understand the views of the latter towards these, as according to Maslow, they are key factors to the fulfillment of individual needs.

Human motivation is a complex and well-studied subject with roots in different academic disciplines including psychology, sociology, economics, and political science.  The term motivation derives from the Latin word movere, which stands for movement and according to Honeycutt, Ford and…

In my previous blog post, I have referred to the way that digitalisation is affecting Sales and that it is high time for sales organisations to review “analogue” approaches, in order to be more successful in this new era.  Today, I’m going to share some ideas on how this may be…

It is without a doubt evident that we live in a more and more digitalised world, which has significantly affected our daily lives and routines in several ways. This digital transformation has also affected Sales, primarily by shifting the “balance of power” between seller and buyer in favour of…

In my previous blog post, I wrote about the lack of differentiation between companies, which leaves the potential customers “swimming in a sea of sameness”, making difficult for them to reach to a decision, as they can’t easily find value.

During the Christmas holidays I read “Lost in a sea of sameness”, a very interesting white paper from Danheiser, Kelly and Johnston regarding the lack of differentiation in the telecommunications industry.