A successful sale often starts with a well-qualified lead. What’s equally important is the salesperson that nurtures and closes that lead. Because, we all know even a well-qualified lead in the hands of a salesperson that cannot engage the customer is as good as no lead. That’s not to say leads should only be handed out to your highest-performing salespeople (though many organizations do this actively, pushing the most prized leads to their top performers). This has implications for lead assignment as well. But, that’s only half the story. MORE >>

That leads to all sorts of challenges…the ultimate one being people (especially your high performers) deciding to leave. Which leads to an entire conversation on coaching fundamentals – a good time to remind them about who to coach and who NOT to coach. I’ve been getting a large number of M&A-related questions lately, specifically on how to integrate two different sales forces, the challenges posed by new or changing roles and responsibilities of reps and managers, as well as the shuffling of accounts that normally accompany a merger. Customer-level M&A Considerations. MORE >>

The backbone of any of our research, tools, engagements, or publications is what we see working at the leading edge of sales effectiveness. Here at CEB’s Sales Executive Council we are both excited and humbled by the global excitement for our research profiled in The Challenger Sale.  Indeed, just last week the book made it into the Wall Street Journal business book bestseller list for the first time.  Not surprisingly, that kind of attention has led to a great deal of momentum around the model, but some common questions as well.  Is the Challenger approach really all that new? MORE >>

Companies like IBM have been lead-steerers for the rest of the sales community time and time again – and their work in the social selling space is no different. In late November, we released the first five trends of our annual “10 Trends” blog post. Thanks for sharing those as extensively as you did! And thanks to the many readers who insisted we publish these 5 more quickly. Without much fanfare, let’s dive into the remainder of the list. As usual, we look forward to your thoughts and feedback. Your customer becomes your biggest competition. Then they call you in to present. Why not? MORE >>

To navigate through increasingly complicated sales interactions, companies are looking to sellers to teach and lead the customer through the buying process. For this purpose, leading companies are coaching sellers on both deal-based and skill-based capabilities, targeting a few key development areas based on analysis of trends in seller behavior over time. However, time alone does not lead to coaching effectiveness; it largely depends on how well that time is used. That’s because the progressively complex sales environment is pushing sellers to develop new skills. MORE >>