Sales Effectiveness

The salesperson learns that when things get difficult, the manager will provide the answer and the manager becomes increasingly involved in the deals that matter most. Before long, they're not leading a sales team. They're carrying one.

You can't manage tomorrow's revenue by only inspecting yesterday's behaviour.

Commission-only door-to-door selling taught me to look beyond the numbers game. CAPS shows where conversion slips, so individuals and teams can improve the skills that matter.

The best value proposition isn't simply the one you can articulate beautifully, It's the one your customer can articulate without you in the room.

If I listened to ten of your sales conversations this week, would I hear people genuinely trying to understand the customer, or people trying to find their opportunity to sell?

I've spent a large part of my career in and around sales, selling, leading sales teams, coaching sales people, working with sales leaders and building commercial capability. One thing I've learnt is that when the number isn't where we want it to be, we have a tendency to look for the answer: We need more pipeline. We need more activity. We need better conversion. We need sales training. We need a new methodology. We need better account plans. We need people to prospect more.

It is a pipeline full of opportunities everyone believes will close, but nobody has properly challenged. At this point in the year, optimism is not enough. Your top three opportunities deserve robust commercial diligence: Do we genuinely understand the customer’s priorities? Are we connected to the people shaping the decision? Is the value strong enough to withstand scrutiny from finance and procurement? Have we identified the real obstacles, including the ones nobody is talk