Any salesperson will tell you that what they do is part science and part art — part hard skills (the actual knowledge of the product and the market) and part soft skills (the interpersonal aspect of sales).

Today’s sales training paradigms take a divide-and-conquer approach to developing the hybrid of soft/hard skills that drive direct sales interactions

In-person meetings between customers and salespeople were once at the heart of B2B buying and selling. Now digital communication is embedding itself in every aspect of business. This had led some organizations to look at the future and ask a simple question: Will we still need salespeople?

The struggle to create content that sales loves is real. For some marketing teams, in fact, their story is a tragedy, with sales using only 30% of the enablement content that marketing creates. Sometimes it’s a matter of sales and marketing not being in alignment. And other times, the two might agree on the goal, but content misses the mark, can’t be found, or can’t scale.

Leading the transformation from a transactional business to selling broader solutions is a major challenge for most companies. Especially when you have a sales organization that is already very good at what they do. So how do you communicate and execute on your vision for the organization? It starts with a change in mindset –– a different mental model.

As a leader, do you feel like you have to know it all? Or that expressing uncertainty or revising your viewpoints would undermine your effectiveness as a leader?

Unfortunately, this way of thinking can backfire. Nurse-leader and author Karlene Kerfoot, writing about health care, suggested that when leaders become entrenched in their routine thought processes, they are more likely to disregard others’ helpful ideas and innovative models of leadership.

According to a CareerBuilder survey of over 3,600 workers, most people don’t want to be managers. Of the subset who are interested in rising to management, they make up slightly over one-third of organizations (34%). This slim percentage does not provide enough innate appetite from individual contributors to fill company’s need for aspiring managers.

January 20, 2022 Planning for the future of work has always been important. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the next big organizational shift—turning a hypothetical future into an immediate reality. In this rapid pivot, organizations gathered key learnings with long-term potential to improve operating models, employee experience, productivity, and more.

After all of the years that I’ve worked in leadership, there is one question that resurfaces again and again: Are leaders born or made?

While you can’t ignore that everyone is born with certain traits that will affect leadership abilities, this is not the end of the journey. Part of the challenge as leaders is to understand what those traits are and how to further develop them.

Every business has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in one way or another. Employees getting sick, a rapid shift to remote work, labor shortages, and supply chain issues are just a few of the challenges companies have dealt with these last two years.

Just as businesses have changed, so must sales. If you're not making changes in your sales processes, you're probably leaving money on the table.

Once seen as secondary to in-person sales, the e-commerce channel has rocketed to the forefront since 2020 and is now a key purchasing gateway for many corporate buyers.

Despite this, misconceptions abound, with a number of B2B companies telling us that “customers aren’t ready” and “e-commerce is an immature space for businesses like ours.”

These days, top salespeople know to speak the language of their clients. If your client is a straight-shooting, direct communicator (think New York stereotype), you can be equally direct with them. If your client is reserved (think Midwest farmer’s daughter), direct communication can be intimidating. While it can be tough enough speaking with one buyer and understanding their style, today’s challenges and uncertainty make buyers extra cautious.

The reporter gig has its perks. We get a front-row seat to the most influential people on our beats, sometimes the most influential on the planet. We get paid to learn—and share the best lessons with you. Interviewing business leaders in 2021 has given us incredible access to America’s top bosses as they navigated a complex, volatile and remarkable year.

When it comes to leadership development, the business case for investing in the “best” given limited organizational resources appears straightforward: Individuals who have a demonstrated track record of success deserve to be recognized, right? They also seem like sure bets who will benefit the most from development opportunities because they have the requisite experience and capabilities to grow. But the individuals who receive the most development are often the ones who arguably need it the least.

So you want to be a leader, whether that means inspiring an entire organization or managing a small team. But do you know what it takes to succeed?

I’ve spent two decades working with researchers and workplace experts to identify the skills and traits that have gotten people ahead. Drawing from assessments of nearly 30,000 people at entry level, midlevel and C-suite, we compiled high-performance profiles that define what it takes to be great at each of these levels.

By now, it’s clear that The Great Resignation is much more than a short-lived fad. After more than 38 million people left their jobs last year, today’s retention surge shows no signs of slowing down. Gartner's research predicts that employers will need to brace for a year-over-year turnover rate that is 50% to 75% higher than what they’re accustomed to.

Enter 2022 and we will have B2B marketers witnessing a range of technology trends. The overarching principle driving these changes is that the customer demands a lot more. The growing competition and race for profitability amidst the pandemic have put the customer in the driving seat. The old paradigm of leading the customer is gradually being phased out, favoring a new one — follow the customers and cater to their requirements.

Whether you call them New Year’s resolutions or goals, many of us are setting action items to help us improve in 2022. Scrolling through LinkedIn recently, I saw several sales leaders sharing their goals. One common theme: They want to empower their sales teams to succeed.

My articles begin with analogies so we'll start by asking, has baseball changed?

Games take longer, there is role specialization, starting pitchers rarely complete games, hitters are stronger, pitchers routinely throw in the mid 90's and there is a trend towards either hitting a home run or striking out. But it's still baseball. It is still played the same way. The changes are superficial.

It seems after four decades of talk about the “consultative” or “solution” sales approach, companies would be adept at selling this way by now. Unfortunately, that’s not the case: Many sales professionals struggle to move beyond pitching their products or services to providing solutions that are connected to customer business outcomes.

In business, longevity matters. Overnight success stories aside, starting and building a business that lasts takes time. Time to develop a great team of outstanding employees. Time to make lasting connections, forge lasting partnerships, and build long-term relationships with loyal customers.