In today’s competitive market, sales teams are often caught in a tug-of-war between management’s demand for increased margins and customers’ insistence on discounts or additional services at the same price. This pressure cooker environment can lead to costly concessions, with salespeople frequently offering discounts or free services instead of firmly defending the value of their solutions. The question is, how can organizations empower their sales teams to navigate these complex negotiations without caving to price pressures? 

The Value of Pre-Negotiation Planning 

Imagine this: 89% of negotiation outcomes are decided before you even step into the negotiation room. This staggering statistic underscores the importance of what happens before the actual negotiation begins, and shortly after. The truth is, the next negotiation starts the moment the previous one ends. 

Successful negotiations aren’t just about the discussions that happen during the meeting; they’re about the groundwork laid beforehand. By focusing on value-driven strategies before the price negotiation begins, salespeople can raise the perceived value of their offer, aligning it with the customer’s mental readiness and needs. This preemptive approach allows sales teams to discuss the right topics at the right time, ensuring that they’re not just defending their price but proving the value they bring to the table. 

Our approach is customer-centric by design. It starts by detecting buying readiness at every touchpoint, enabling sales teams to recognize when a customer is open-minded enough to appreciate the added value of their solution. This approach eliminates the frustration of doing the right thing at the wrong time or with the wrong people. By choosing a methodology which emphasizes pre- & post-negotiation strategies, you’re setting your team up for success long before the formal negotiation begins. 

Balancing Power Dynamics: The Key to Confident Negotiations 

One of the major reasons why salespeople often give in too quickly during negotiations is a misinterpretation or incorrect assessment of the balance of power between the negotiating parties. Understanding and leveraging the balance of power is critical to developing effective negotiation strategies and setting realistic expectations. 

Imagine equipping your team with a tactical game plan that helps them accurately assess the balance of power. This tool allows them to identify leverage points, assess the counterparty’s power, and develop strategies that resist price pressures while aiming for mutually beneficial outcomes. By understanding where they stand in the power dynamic, salespeople can approach negotiations with increased confidence, resisting the urge to concede too quickly and instead holding firm on the value they provide. 

Our tactical game plan is designed to help your sales team navigate these power dynamics effectively. By correctly assessing the balance of power, your team can set the stage for a negotiation where they are not just defending their price but actively demonstrating why their solution is worth the investment. 

Negotiations as a Strategic Game: Mastering Emotional Detachment 

Too often, salespeople take negotiations personally, which can lead to reactive decision-making and unnecessary concessions. However, when negotiations are viewed as a strategic game, salespeople can maintain emotional detachment and approach the process with a clear, calculated mindset. 

Think of negotiation as a game of chess, where every move is strategic, and the ultimate goal is to stay two steps ahead. Just like in chess, successful negotiations have an opening move, a middle game, and an endgame. By treating negotiations as a game, salespeople can master the art of give and take, ensuring that each concession they make is strategic rather than reactionary. 

complex negotiation skills

This mindset shift not only boosts confidence but also enhances the effectiveness of the negotiation process. By focusing on the bigger picture rather than getting caught up in the heat of the moment, your sales team can navigate negotiations with greater control, ensuring that they come out on top. 

Our negotiation training emphasizes this strategic approach, equipping your team with the skills to view negotiations as a game where they are always two steps ahead. This approach transforms the negotiation process from a stressful confrontation into a calculated strategy session, leading to better outcomes and stronger customer relationships. 

Bridging the Gap Between Knowing and Doing: Capability Building 

The gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it in the field can only be bridged through effective capability building. This goes beyond simply developing competence; it involves creating a common language, improving messaging, and integrating skills in a way that directly addresses current sales challenges. 

Adoption is the leading indicator of field impact. When skills are not only acquired but also applied in real-world scenarios, the results are immediate and significant. However, during practical application, new skill gaps may emerge, such as conversational fluency or deeper negotiation techniques. Our approach ensures that these gaps are quickly addressed, maximizing the impact of training programs. 

By choosing a negotation training which emphasizes capability building, you ensure that your team is not only learning but also mastering the skills necessary to excel in complex negotiations. This approach provides ample opportunities for practice and mastery, making training relevant and impactful for everyday sales activities. 

Conclusion: Transforming Negotiations into Value-Driven Success 

Complex negotiations are no longer just about defending price—they’re about defending and proving value. By focusing on pre- & post-negotiation strategies, correctly assessing the balance of power, and approaching negotiations as a strategic game, your sales team can navigate even the toughest negotiations with confidence and control. 

At Perpetos, we understand the challenges of complex negotiations, and our approach is designed to equip your team with the tools and mindset needed to succeed. Whether it’s through capability based training or project implementations, we’re here to help you transform challenging negotiations into opportunities for value-driven success. 

Are you ready to empower your sales team to hold firm on value and achieve better outcomes? Let’s start the conversation today.


To thrive in a fast-paced business environment, sales organizations need effective change management to drive fast adoption and create a culture of continuous improvement.

Kurt Lewin’s behavior formula, B=f(P,E), provides a timeless solution.

Kurt Lewin’s behavior formula, B=f(P,E)

It explains how behavior (B) is influenced (f) by both personal factors (P) and the surrounding environment (E). By leveraging this formula, managers can foster high adoption rates of new practices and create a culture of continuous improvement, essential for navigating today’s ever-changing landscape. 

One key area where this is particularly relevant is business visibility. Fast-paced change and uncertainty make it almost impossible to manage the sales team based on a single target. The likelihood of missing that target is 100%, either by overshooting or not reaching it. Therefore, a future proof practice is to implement scenario-based budgeting and forecasting. To work well, this requires a culture of continuous improvement and a high adoption of CRM. 

Applying Lewin’s formula to drive change for High Performance 

To achieve high adoption of CRM and cultivate a culture of continuous improvement, it’s essential to adapt the context within which your sales team operates. This directly ties into Lewin’s formula, where changing the environment (E) can significantly influence behavior (B). The first step is to increase the value of the CRM to meet the day-to-day needs of the sales team. Too often, CRM systems are seen as overly complex, with fields and workflows that don’t align with the salespeople’s reality. This misalignment leads to the CRM being viewed as a burdensome reporting tool rather than a valuable resource. 

Tailoring CRM to Sales Reality 

For a CRM system to be genuinely useful, it must be designed to allow salespeople to reflect their reality instead of asking them to report what you would like to see. Giving management a view of the perceived reality by sales allows for active steering and coaching instead of showing a not up to date ‘virtual’ reality. This includes simplifying fields, agile workflows to reflect the buying process based on customer verifiable outcomes.  Providing dashboards allowing sales to optimize their time spend and ensuring that CRM adds tangible value to their daily tasks is another key factor. When salespeople see the CRM as a tool that helps them close deals and manage relationships more effectively, rather than just a reporting obligation, their adoption and engagement will naturally increase. 

Leadership by Example 

A critical factor in driving change is leadership behavior. Sales leaders must walk the talk by using the CRM themselves, conducting one-on-one business reviews based on live CRM, and leveraging BI dashboards. When leaders use the CRM in their daily operations, decision-making, and steering & coaching, it sets a powerful example for the rest of the team. This alignment of personal factors (P) and environment (E) reinforces the desired behavior (B). It signals that the CRM is not just for reporting but is a crucial tool for sales strategy and operational effectiveness. 

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement 

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement 

In today’s dynamic market, fostering a culture of continuous improvement is vital. This culture hinges on experience sharing and learning from one another. Regular team meetings should not only focus on sharing successes and challenges but also involve using the collective intelligence of the team to come up with practical suggestions to help solve the challenges at hand. Encouraging open communication and collaboration helps the team adapt quickly to new strategies and market conditions. Thus, improving both personal motivation (P) and the working environment (E). 

Scenario-Based Budgeting and Forecasting 

Simplifying the CRM system and increasing the perceived value to the sales team paves the way for implementing scenario-based forecasting. This approach involves creating three scenarios: worst case, most realistic case, and best case. This approach directly applies Lewin’s formula by aligning personal efforts (P) with an adaptive environment (E)  

This method allows for more effective steering, coaching and self-coaching since the differences between scenarios should be minimal in the short term and vary more for future projections. Scenarios are typically generated by correlating a few key fields and checkboxes, which can be automated. This strategic and agile approach enables sales teams to see the direct impact of their efforts and adjust their strategies accordingly, reinforcing the importance of accurate data based on customer verifiable outcomes. 

Conclusion 

Kurt Lewin’s formula offers timeless wisdom for managing change in sales organizations. By recognizing that behavior is influenced by both personal motivations and the broader environment, leaders can craft strategies that drive real, sustainable change. As Lewin’s insights have proven, merely delivering training and coaching or providing advice are necessary activities, but they are not complete solutions on their own. 

Leverage Lewin’s principles to drive positive change in your sales organization. Walk the talk, create a supportive environment, use collective intelligence with intervision techniques, and build a culture of continuous improvement as a result. By doing so, you’ll not only cultivate a culture of excellence that benefits everyone but also greatly improve proactive behavior and increase your business visibility and results. 

At Perpetos, we implement change by integrating technology improvements with training, coaching, mentoring, and consulting. Our hands-on, pragmatic approach is delivered through implementation services by our co-pilots. This method adapts the context within which your team operates, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and leading by example. Our comprehensive solutions help leaders guide their teams through today’s complexities, ensuring not just survival but also maximizing potential. Let’s navigate change together and build future-proof organizations. 

This approach adapts the context within which your team operates and fosters a culture of continuous improvement and leading by example. Our comprehensive solutions help leaders guide their teams through today’s complexities, ensuring not just stability, but maximizing potential. Let’s navigate change together and build future proof organizations. 

Contact us if you’re ready for commercial excellence!


Perpetos helped a global industry leader in premium label solutions to develop its customer portfolio and optimize it in a dynamic way. As a result, the organization was able to maximize its sales results.

The challenge: the right time and effort for every customer

The label solutions company had gone through an impressive growth in recent years. Unfortunately, this had gradually complicated the global organization of sales. Because of multiple acquisitions, sales were no longer organized in a uniform way.

The organization had always classified its customers based on past sales results. However, because of changing market conditions, the share of wallet of customers had become much more dynamic. This made it increasingly difficult for the sales organization to allocate the right amount of time and effort to the right accounts.

The label company also lacked understanding of its customers’ true potential and there was a big variety in the degree in which sales people followed up on their opportunities.

When contacting Perpetos, the sales team was looking to solve the following challenges:

  • How to target the right customers
  • How to spend the right amount of time with customers according to growth potential, without losing turnover from current big accounts
  • How to assign the right customer portfolio to the right sales representative, based on sales skills  
  • How to make sure sales people apply the right mix of tactics to achieve their sales targets
  • How to support sales in their skill development

The solution: dynamic account portfolio

Perpetos implemented a program to help sales develop their customer base and to dynamically optimize their customer portfolio. This would help the organization to maximize revenue per salesperson by spending the right amount of effort to the right accounts.

The label company was looking for a practical approach and implementation without extensive theoretical analysis. The goal was to achieve quick results and to stimulate motivation and readiness for change as much as possible. The organization also wanted to gradually improve its market visibility and identify the highest-potential growth areas by geography, market and solution.

Sales team scan

Perpetos started with a quick scan of the sales team. This was an important step towards making better use of the people in the team to realize the sales goals. The audit uncovered different sales profiles, as well as the team’s strengths and points of improvement. The results of the scan were translated into concrete action points.

Dynamic micro-segmentation

Next, customers were categorized based on their annual purchase amount and revenue of recent years. This resulted in four micro-segments based on share of wallet. For every customer segment, the team determined which activities were needed to maximize the share of wallet.

The team was asked to:

  • Indicate the total addressable market: which portion of the label purchase was not interesting, because the organization’s solutions or price were not a fit?
  • Determine the importance of a customer, based on their realistic potential within three years, on the condition that this customer receives the right amount of attention and service.
  • Analyze the numbers for every sales representative and propose a good enough starting point for the next steps in the program.
Sales team scan

Next, the customer base was divided into four different segments based on growth potential and on the required efforts to realize that potential. This micro-segmentation was dynamic, and enabled the team to make changes immediately visible to the rest of the organization.

The objective of the program was for the sales staff to spend their time on the growth opportunities with the highest chance of success. Support from marketing and customer service was also aligned with the modified approach, so that sales could focus fully on developing growth.

Optimization of sales activities

Based on the micro-segmentation, the individual and team-based sales activities were optimized. The optimization took three elements into consideration:

  1. Is the mix of customers correctly distributed among the salespeople based on their strengths and experience?
  2. Has the team set the right priorities to maximize results together, within available sales time?
  3. Are sales and marketing activities correctly aligned with growth potential, available production capacity and competitive advantages?

The result: clear path for transformation

Do you also want to maximize your sales revenue? Get in touch


In a world where customer relationships are the backbone of successful businesses, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is at the heart of company strategies. Yet, the stark reality is that many CRM implementations don’t deliver the expected results. CRM implementations often fail due to reliance on standard configurations, a focus on financial rather than sales support, and a narrow view of the sales funnel. To improve outcomes, customize your CRM to reflect your unique sales processes, simplify data entry to enhance adoption, and tailor screens and reports for operational support. Want to learn more? Continue reading. 

Failure of CRM implementations leads to frustration within teams, wasted investments, and ultimately, a disconnect between what sales teams expect and what CRM systems deliver. But why do so many CRM initiatives fail, and more importantly, what can we do to overcome these challenges? 

Core Reasons for CRM Implementation Failures 

1. Standard Configurations vs. Customization 

Many organizations start with a standard CRM configuration that isn’t finetuned to their unique processes and needs. This one-size-fits-all model often overlooks the specific dynamics and requirements of the business, resulting in underutilization of the system.  

2. Focusing on Financial Drivers Over Sales Support 

Another common issue is that CRM systems are primarily set up to feed financial systems, with little consideration for the actual support of sales processes. This creates a gap between what salespeople need and the functionalities of the system. 

3. Limited Focus on the Final Stages of the Funnel 

Many CRM solutions concentrate only on the last steps of the sales funnel, ignoring crucial aspects of the entire customer journey. This leads to an incomplete understanding of the customer experience and missed opportunities for early engagement. 

The result of these missteps is a CRM system that is perceived as more of a burden than a tool, with inaccurate data due to a lack of use by the sales teams. 

Can you avoid this? Yes you can. Read on to find out how. 

Solutions for More Effective CRM Implementations 

Reflect Reality in Your CRM 

It’s crucial that your CRM system is an accurate reflection of how your customers actually buy. This requires a thorough analysis and customization of the system to accurately mirror the unique selling and buying processes of your organization. Is your sales process aligned to the way your customer buys? Does your sales process support the different product/market combinations, or is it too rigid to support these different situations?  For example, you can start applying the Buying Clock® methodology, very easily in your CRM.

Simplify Data Entry 

By limiting data entry to essential information, the CRM system is perceived as a supportive tool rather than an administrative burden. This significantly increases adoption among salespeople and improves data quality. Don’t expect salespeople to document elaborate sales reports in your CRM.  By limiting to those parameters that allow the salesperson as the manager to think strategically about the opportunity, the CRM becomes a strong sales tool and not a necessary admin application. 

Effective CRM Implementations - Customize Screens and Reports 

Customize Screens and Reports 

Make the CRM tool truly valuable for your team by defining screens and reports that support day-to-day operational activities. This ensures that the tool is seen as an integral part of the sales process. 

Conclusion and Call to Action 

A thoughtful, customized approach to CRM can bridge the gap between technology and user, making your investment truly pay off. Different customers already benefit from this approach.

If you recognize these issues and are seeking expert help to refine your CRM strategy and prevent failure, it’s time to take action. 

Is this limited only to those who are implementing a new CRM.  Certainly not, even with existing CRM applications you can create a strong impact on the effective use of your CRM with a minimum of modifications. 

Reach out to experts with deep experience in tailoring CRM systems to the unique needs of businesses. Together, we can chart a course to a CRM solution that not only meets the needs of your financial system but also empowers your sales team and contributes to a seamless, effective customer journey. 


In the competitive world of sales, success isn’t stumbled upon—it’s crafted, honed, and perfected much like the journey of a top athlete in the realm of sports. This comparison might initially seem far-fetched to some, but upon closer examination, the parallels between excelling in sales and succeeding in top-level sports are strikingly clear. Both arenas require relentless practice, a dedicated coach to guide and refine techniques, and an unwavering commitment to improving performance despite the absence of immediate results. While we wrote before on sales as a team sport, this article focuses more on the individual. It explores the compelling reasons why sales can be compared to top sport and why understanding this analogy is crucial for those looking to excel in their sales careers.

The Importance of Practice

In top-level sports, the saying goes, “practice makes perfect.” This mantra is equally applicable to sales. Just as athletes spend countless hours perfecting their skills, sales professionals must also dedicate themselves to mastering the art of selling. This involves not just understanding the product or service but also developing the ability to read the buying readiness of potential clients, navigate to next objectives, and help the customer to buy. Just like in sports, the practice in sales is continuous, aimed at refining and improving every aspect of the sales process. Having a customer agnostic sales process, that aligns with the buying readiness of the customer, gives you a big advantage creating clarity on what to practice.

The Role of a Coach

The Role of a Coach

Behind every successful athlete is a coach who has guided, mentored, and pushed them to achieve their best. Similarly, in sales, having a mentor or coach can significantly impact a sales professional’s growth and success. A good sales coach provides invaluable feedback, helping to identify areas for improvement and adjust strategies as necessary. They offer an outside perspective that can highlight blind spots and open up new avenues for development that the salesperson might not have considered. Unfortunately, very often, sales managers don’t take up the role as coach because they lack time, because they were never trained to coach or simply lack the capability. On top of that, they hardly get questions from their manager on the coaching results, but get daily or weekly questions on the numbers.

The Challenge of Immediate Results

As sales is percieved as a number game, sales people are biased towards immediate results. One of the biggest challenges both athletes and sales professionals face is exactly this expectation of immediate results. In sports, the impact of a new training regimen or technique might not be evident in the short term. Likewise, in sales, efforts to improve practices or implement new strategies do not always lead to instant success. This delay in seeing results can be discouraging, but it is a critical phase where the foundational elements for future success are laid down.

Traditional Training vs. Continuous Improvement

This expectation of instant gratification is where traditional sales training often falls short. Traditional methods may provide a foundational knowledge of sales techniques and processes, but they fail to account for the individual’s need for continuous improvement and adaptation. Just as athletes must constantly evolve to stay competitive, sales professionals must also continually refine their approach to stay ahead in a dynamic market. Implementing next practices and integrating feedback from a coach are crucial steps that move the needle towards achieving commercial excellence.

Conclusion


The challenge every Sales or HR leader faces when enhancing the effectiveness of their sales teams 

In the ever-changing landscape of sales and marketing, VPs of Sales and HR Directors are continuously seeking ways to enhance the effectiveness of their teams. The key to this lies not just in skill-building but in nurturing broader capabilities. It’s time to consider a shift towards a capability-based Sales Academy, an approach that promises to revolutionize how your sales team operates. 

Why are traditional skill based Sales Academies failing and What can you do about it? 

A critical limitation of traditional skill-based training is its narrow focus, often misaligned with the dynamic roles of sales professionals. In a capability-based Sales Academy, the focus extends to developing comprehensive capabilities that are vital in today’s market. These include discovering untapped potential for pipeline building, developing robust account strategies, and identifying accounts with the highest potential for up- and cross-selling. These are not mere skills; they are strategic capabilities that empower sales professionals to navigate complex market dynamics and drive sustainable growth. 

The traditional approach to sales training is often a short-lived boost in specific skills, that do not cater to the evolving nature of the sales environment. Market trends shift, customer preferences change, and products evolve – a scenario where only continuous learning and adaptability can ensure success. A capability-focused Sales Academy fosters this environment of continuous growth, ensuring your sales force remains agile, innovative, and ahead of the curve

Moreover, the transformation from a skill-based to a capability-based training paradigm requires active management engagement. This involves identifying growth areas, integrating real-world applications, and creating opportunities for teams to apply new capabilities in strategic planning and execution. Such involvement not only underscores the training process but also demonstrates a commitment to nurturing a high-potential sales force

Implementing a capability-based Sales Academy is more than just a shift in training methodology; it’s a strategic investment in your organization’s future. By focusing on capabilities like untapped pipeline potential discovery, account strategy development, and targeted up- and cross-selling, you’re equipping your sales team not just to meet targets but to exceed them innovatively and consistently. 

As we navigate a market that demands more agility and strategic foresight than ever before, the need for a capable and forward-thinking sales force is paramount. For VPs of Sales and HR Directors, championing a capability-based Sales Academy is not just an innovative step forward; it’s an essential strategy for staying competitive and driving long-term success. By investing in these broader capabilities, you’re paving the way for a more dynamic, proactive, and high-performing sales team. 


Challenge: Identifying Lengthy Sales Cycles 

Sales leaders in the tech industry can detect the challenge of longer sales cycles through a few key indicators within their organizations. This might manifest as an increasing time between initial customer contact and deal closure, a growing number of touchpoints or interactions needed before a sale is secured, or feedback from the sales team about the complexities and delays in customer decision-making processes. It’s often noticeable in the form of elongated negotiations, extended pilot programs, or increased requirements for technical validations. 

Root Causes for Longer Sales Cycles 

Several factors contribute to longer sales cycles in the tech sector: 

  1. Complex Decision-Making Units: Tech purchases often involve a multitude of stakeholders, each with their own set of concerns and requirements. The decision-making unit may include IT professionals, end-users, financial controllers, and senior executives, each needing to be convinced of the problem, why it has to be solved now and how you are unique in solving their challenge.  
  1. Complexity of Customer Problems: Customers are seeking solutions for increasingly complex problems, which require sophisticated and customized tech solutions. Understanding these complexities and tailoring the sales approach to address them specifically can extend the duration of the sales cycle. 
  1. Budget Cycles and Financial Scrutiny: Given the significant investment often associated with technology solutions, purchases may be tied to customers’ fiscal planning cycles and subjected to rigorous financial scrutiny and require having everybody aligned on the necessity of the investment to be done 
  1. Market Saturation and Competition: A crowded marketplace means that customers often have many options to consider, leading to a more extended comparison and evaluation phase
  1. Regulatory and Compliance Issues: Especially in industries like healthcare or finance, sales are impacted by various regulatory and compliance requirements, which can further lengthen the sales process as these boxes need to be checked before a deal can progress. 

Strategies to Anticipate and Navigate Longer Sales Cycles 

To anticipate and effectively manage these extended sales cycles, consider the following strategic approaches: 

  1. Align Sales and Marketing with Customer Buying Behaviors: Develop a sales and marketing strategy that is in lockstep with the customer’s buying behavior. This involves creating a common understanding of how your customers buy, what the right conversation should be with the different stakeholders, and which are the key touchpoints. The fact that every customer is unique in his or her behavior, you need a fuzzy logic approach that can align to each different situation.  Creating the capabilities in your team for understanding where the potential customer is in their buying readiness is key.  Utilize data analytics to predict when customers are most likely to engage, allowing sales teams to initiate the right conversations at the right time. Content marketing should be leveraged to educate and nurture leads throughout the buying process, providing them with the information they need when they need it, effectively shortening the sales cycle by aligning with their pace and progress.
  2. Facilitate Buying Committee Alignment: Since tech purchases often involve a committee, it’s essential to align your sales process with the various stages of their buying journey. This means understanding the unique concerns and criteria of each stakeholder and tailoring communication to address these points. Sales representatives should aim to facilitate consensus among the committee by identifying and addressing the specific needs of each member. This might involve creating tailored conversations, aligned messaging and facilitating workshops or demonstrations that address collective and individual concerns. All while maintaining open lines of communication to ensure that all members move through the buying process together. 
  3. Simplify and Intuitize the Sales Approach: A complex sales process can be daunting for both the customer and the sales team. Streamlining the sales methodology to be simple and intuitive is critical. This can be achieved by using a simple metaphor that everybody can understand and that is easy to implement. It ideally outlines each step in the customer buying process, from initial issue awareness to post-sale follow-up.Training programs should focus on reinforcing these methods until they become second nature to the sales team. Additionally, employing tools such as CRM systems that provide prompts and reminders can help ensure that the sales methodology is consistently applied across all interactions.

      By implementing these strategies, sales leaders in the tech industry can better prepare their teams to navigate the challenges of longer sales cycles, ultimately leading to more successful outcomes and sustained business growth. 


      Does it still make sense to present the sales process as a linear multi-step progression? And if not, how can we organize sales to handle today’s complex reality? 

      During the industrial revolution in the 19th century, industrialists tried to streamline and standardise factory production into linear processes as much as possible – thinking that this would help them to manage their activities, predict the outcome of each step in the production process, and so ensure a consistent level of quality.  

      We still view the sales process today largely in the same linear way as the industrialists did back in the 19th century. We get a sales lead in, qualify it, have a discovery meeting, exert our influence in the offer phase, and do whatever it takes to close the deal.  

      We often assess our salespeople’s productivity according to this linear logic: we count the number of appointments, offers and conversion rate for these offers, and then we try to optimize this process as much as possible. The leading salesperson in the organization is usually the benchmark in this assessment, with the lesser gods needing to mould themselves into their image.  

      Increasing complexity  

      Organizing sales according to this linear representation works to a certain extent – the complexity of the sales process can be manageable if you share exactly the same sales dynamic in all deals, and only have to deal with one type of stakeholder, with a similar order size each time…  

      But the reality is completely different and much more complex for most salespeople:  

      • Most salespeople are responsible for different products and serve different vertical markets
      • The number of stakeholders who make or influence decisions is growing all the time. The most recent research speaks of 5 to 20 stakeholders, depending on the size and complexity of activities
      • The various decision-makers and influencers are rarely or never all in the same mental phase in the buying journey. Some of them will not yet see the benefits of your product, while others might have been wanting it for a long time already. Each stakeholder will have travelled part of the buying journey from the perspective of their own responsibilities, and considered the impact of your product on their department

      This alone can result in overwhelming complexity already, which makes it difficult for individual salespeople to handle. Every element in this complicated matrix of products, industries, stakeholders and buying phases demands a different sales conversation. Also bear in mind that each salesperson is working on multiple deals at the same time. 

      Linear internal processes  

      The linear approach is unfortunately still the most common, and it’s often cemented in rigid processes and CRM systems. It’s a recipe for failure. A typical example is a salesperson having a conversation with a prospect who knows exactly what they want but does not have the authority to make a decision. A CRM often cannot handle this complexity.  

      The classic picture of suspect – prospect – discovery – solution – object handling – closing has often been updated and aligned with a typical buying process for complex sales, but even here, salespeople are often forced into a linear framework of ‘required steps to follow’.

      Even in complex sales, salespeople are often forced into a linear framework of necessary steps to follow

      The typical marketing approach, where prospects go through a funnel from awareness to decision, may be useful for content marketing and digital customer journeys, but it is too simplistic to represent the complexity of the actual buying journey, and certainly not suitable for tracing buying readiness. Is someone who downloads your eBook interested in buying your product? Maybe. But just as often they do this out of personal interest. 

      Adapting to the unique buying journey  

      It’s clear that every buying journey is unique, and classic sales models cannot adequately capture this reality. Every decision-maker has taken their own path, and it’s difficult for a linear process to provide an answer to that. As a salesperson, you are constantly entering into the customer’s buying journey at different moments. Forcing an internal, linear process on the customer’s mental process is therefore useless. 

      Marketing Funnel
      As a salesperson, you are constantly breaking into the customer’s buying journey at different moments. This cannot be represented in a linear way

      Take the example of a couple entering an electronics store to look for a new TV. The tech geek in the couple will likely be quickly convinced about the latest features on the new 8K HD device. The more price-conscious half of the couple may wonder whether a new purchase is even necessary. As a salesperson, you need to adapt to each buyer’s mental phase. You probably won’t be able to bluff the price-conscious half of the couple with features (decision). Nor will you have to point out to the tech geek the necessity for a new TV (awareness).  

      What salespeople need today, to be able to handle complexity, is an adaptive model that allows them to be agile and adapt to every situation. The salesperson’s main task is therefore to detect the customer’s mental state and buying readiness. If they can do this, it’s important that they respond to that mental state by doing the right thing at the right time. Developing sales people is one of the main responsibilities for sales leaders. Making sure sales people can report on the real situations in every deal in a very pragmatic but structured way is needed to enable steering and coaching. A classic multi-step process greatly restricts this and makes business reviews too time consuming, with a lot of irrelevant storytelling, and without the expected outcome.


      Companies invest a lot of money in developing content that supports sales, but often see no return on their investment. The reason for this is that the sales organization does not use the developed content, or isn’t using it enough. So what’s going on?  

      The impact of content usage and, by extension, sales enablement has been demonstrated many times before. According to figures from Miller Heiman Group in 2019, organizations without sales enablement achieve average win rates of 42.5%, while organizations with sales enablement achieve an average win rate of 49.0%, a huge 15.3% increase. 

      Sales content is not marketing content  

      Content plays a crucial role in different phases of the buying cycle. It can accelerate the sales process and significantly reduce sales costs. But what exactly do we mean by sales content?  

      Typical sales funnel

      Content for: 

      • onboarding when launching new products or services
      • important announcements with regard to the sales strategy
      • preparing for customer contact moments
      • during the contact moment
      • follow-up after the contact moment
      • training and coaching salespeople

      Apparently, it turns out that salespeople don’t find enough of this kind of content in the materials produced by marketing departments. The reason for this comes from the purpose that marketing content serves, i.e. to influence the market based on its own strengths, and to lead as many interested parties as possible through the famous marketing funnel, with little variation in the message – ‘one-to-many communication’ – as quickly as possible, from awareness to buying intent.  

      Content that is developed for this purpose has some specific characteristics:  

      • the customer searches for and discovers the content under their own initiative (inbound marketing) 
      • the content reaches the customer online or via an automated process (outbound marketing)
      • the effectiveness of the content is measured using KPIs such as clicks, reading time or number of shares
      • the ultimate goal of the content is to generate Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)

      From funnel to unique journey  

      Many organizations still believe the MQL simply needs handing over to the salesperson who then just has an easy tap-in to score the goal. The customer has already passed through the entire marketing funnel, so all sales has to do is cash in on the marketing effort.  

      But this belief is – of course – misguided. The idea that a customer will dutifully go through a content funnel, and immediately be willing to buy at the end of that journey, is not the case in practice. Content is consumed for various reasons in this marketing funnel, and there are sure to be interested parties for your product, but people also download your ebook out of curiosity, or scroll through your website, to ultimately discover it’s not what they’re looking for. So who says your MQL has the required budget, or can make a decision or even influence it?  

      The marketing funnel in no way helps to predict the customer’s buying intent or willingness to buy. And it tells us little about which phase in the buying journey the customer finds themselves. The buying journey is therefore anything but linear, and it’s unique for each customer. When the salesperson starts working with an MQL, they always intervene at a different moment in the buying journey. And that requires specific content.

      Sales content that works  

      It’s impossible for the marketing content mentioned above to satisfy the non-linear need. After all, marketing content is fundamentally different from sales content. The latter needs to support a salesperson before, during and after sales conversations. The customer does not consume it directly; they access it through personal interaction with the salesperson.  

      To increase the use of content in sales and so improve sales productivity, make sure your sales content has these characteristics:  

      • Snackable: short and powerful, simple to use and easy to understand
      • Accessible and quickly findable, so salespeople can spend more time selling and less time searching for content
      • Adapted to the customer’s mental stage in the buying journey
      • Interactive: inviting participation and interaction
      • Just in time: supportive for the salesperson in every phase – from preparing for the customer conversation, to interactions with the customer, and in the follow-up process
      • Focused on action: usable, helpful and encouraging action.  

      Are you ready to get to work on your sales content strategy? Let us know!


      In our conversations with CEOs and sales and marketing directors, we keep hearing the same comment – that fewer and fewer salespeople are meeting their targets. And further investigation has made the reason for this very clear: salespeople have insufficient knowledge of their customers and the market, and are lacking some of the specific competencies required in today’s marketplace. 

      Various research has shown that revenue and sales quotas are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. For example, one study by Sales Insights Lab in 2021 demonstrated that only 24.3% of salespeople were managing to exceed their sales quota. So is there a problem with salespeople’s productivity?  

      Much depends on how we present sales productivity, because the concept is very often seen as a combination of efficiency and effectiveness.  

      Sales Productivity

      And this presentation is a good reflection of traditional sales training, where the main aim is to clone top salespeople’s behaviour into the DNA for other salespeople. According to figures from the Association for Talent Development, the US alone spends $24 billion per year on this.  

      But this approach has a disappointing outcome. Fewer and fewer salespeople are achieving their quotas, and fewer and fewer companies are achieving their revenue targets. So the main challenge is no longer effectiveness, but a lack of knowledge about the customer and an inability to link any available knowledge to products and services.  

      What has changed? 

      Almost everyone agrees that customers are much better informed nowadays. And one consequence of this is that customers prefer it when we are less active in trying to sell. They don’t want us to try to convince them, and instead like to make their own minds up. So traditional methods of talking about the company, products and services simply don’t work anymore because customers can find all the information they need on the internet. They used to accept the information we gave them and were happy with that because there was no alternative, but now they can find all the information they need about products and services without any help or intervention from salespeople. 

      The fact that customers can now serve themselves with this information also has a significant downside, however. How do they deal with conflicting information and advice? How do they know what is correct or relevant?  

      And this is where the opportunity now lies for customer-facing professionals: providing added value, offering useful content, and having meaningful conversations. These are now the most important reasons for customers wanting to engage in dialogue with a salesperson. They expect the salesperson to know their environment and responsibilities, and don’t want to have to bring them up to speed themselves. But they do expect the salesperson to engage in dialogue, share their experiences from other companies, and enhance the buyer’s perspective.  

      What has not changed? 

      All of this has led to a steep rise in content production over recent years because we want to ensure customers can inform themselves. Some suppliers and analysts even claim that content marketing is taking over from sales. Unfortunately, however, it’s not quite that simple.  

      Customers may well be informing themselves more, but content marketing has not solved the problem of declining sales quotas and salespeople productivity. In B2B, digital interactions are just as necessary as personal interactions with sales – as a recent study by Forrester confirms (Sales Enablement: Planning Assumptions 2022, Forrester Research Inc., September 2021). Interactions with customers have only increased recently, e.g. from 16 to 17 between 2017 and 2019, and from 17 to 27 during the pandemic. Customers are seeking out information for themselves, but they still need answers. And this is where the salesperson comes in – because they are still seen as a partner here.

      Furthermore: the type of interaction (digital versus personal with the salesperson) is independent of the phase in the buying process. It’s not the case that a salesperson is only forced to join in at the end of the buying cycle. So we need to make sure we interpret the almost mythical figure – that 57% of the buying cycle is completed before a salesperson is involved – from research firm CEB (now Gartner), correctly. As mentioned above, the customer is better informed these days. So their decision criteria have typically already become more influenced.  

      A salesperson with the right knowledge can therefore engage in dialogue with the customer and avoid this pitfall. It’s all about having meaningful conversations. And it’s not relevant whether these conversations take place through personal interaction or indirect communications – as long as the buyer finds answers in every phase of the buying cycle. Again: content marketing is essential, just like sales. And one cannot do without the other in complex B2B environments. 

      And what about training?  

      Traditional sales training has become outdated, just like the focus on quotas based on efficiency and effectiveness. What we need today, more than ever before, is more focus on sharing knowledge and experiences (see graph). 

      Our advice to sales managers is therefore to enable salespeople to share useful information with customers during sales conversations, and to introduce a common language in your training that encourages team selling and experience sharing. Customer-facing professionals want to be able to have meaningful conversations that are relevant to the context and the customer’s phase in the buying cycle. ‘Just in time’ is the key phrase here. We are therefore seeing increased benefits in training that teaches competencies which allow salespeople to introduce contextually relevant cases, from themselves or at least from their environment. 

      Increasing sales productivity again 

      Our analyses consistently show that salespeople who possess the right knowledge, skills and tools are more likely to meet their quotas. This clearly falls under the realm of sales enablement, a continuous process of giving your customer-facing employees the knowledge, skills and tools they need. 

      Figures from Miller Heiman Group from 2019 support this claim (see graph below), and they show the impact of sales enablement in their 5th Annual Sales Enablement Study. Organizations without sales enablement achieve a win rate of 42.5%, 3.9% lower than the average (46.4%). Organizations with sales enablement achieve an average win rate of 49.0%, a huge 15.3% increase. 

      Win Rates for Forecast Deals

      Win Rates for Forecast Deals

      Creating an environment like this in your organization can therefore significantly improve your sales results. But how do you do that? First and foremost, you need a company culture that encourages continuous learning and improvement. Additionally, it’s also best to make relevant content available in bite-sized pieces, easily accessible, and with clear instructions on when and with whom to use it.  

      In other words, the solution lies in continuously sharing knowledge and experiences to improve the productivity of salespeople and the entire sales team.  

      To find out more, get in touch with one of our experts who will be happy to provide you with specifically tailored and actionable input. Book your appointment today. 

      Want to learn more? Download our eBook:


      Who are the hunters and farmers in your sales team? Or do other characteristics determine the DNA of your salespeople? If you want to improve your team’s sales performance, you need to know their DNA. 

      The classic way to look at salespeople is the dichotomy between hunters and farmers. In a nutshell, this is the difference between salespeople who acquire customers and who maintain customer relationships. 

      Unfortunately, this dichotomy is a bit outdated, and no longer useful for maximizing your team’s sales potential. Further in this article, I explain why. But let me start by stating how we may look at this in a better way. 

      Three important sales competencies  

      Research has shown that every sales profile is, to a greater or lesser extent, a combination of three components or competencies. And one such competence is a mix of knowledge, skills, attitudes and convictions.  

      These components are:  

      • Account Management: This competency focuses on supporting the customer in the best way. This translates into customer support and taking responsibility to resolve problems quickly and appropriately. Account Management also means coordinating and connecting the right people within the company and the customer. Everything is about service and maintaining existing relationships. 
         
      • Account Development: This competency includes actively seeking up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Important attributes here are proactivity and thinking with the customer to cover their needs with the available range of products and services as much as possible. Account Development requires that you can extend relationships to colleagues of your relations who may also benefit from a partnership. This allows you to sell other products and services and maximize the share of wallet. 
      • Business Development: The three main characteristics here are building new relationships, empathy for the customer’s business and influencing from trust. This competency is necessary to develop new opportunities within the same company, but also to activate and bring in new customers. 
      Sales Profile by team example:
      Sales profile by team

      Healthy mix  

      Every salesperson has a unique blend of the three competencies listed above. Some of the underlying skills can be learned, at least up to the point where the salesperson steps outside their comfort zone too far or when personal beliefs become too much of an obstacle in a business environment. In that respect, it is not strange to speak of the salesperson’s DNA. An obvious example is that you would teach someone who scores very high on account management and has virtually no business development competency skills, to market a new product or focus on new customer acquisition.  

      Based on the unique mix of competencies, you can better distribute roles and responsibilities in your team. A balanced distribution ensures a consistent and positive customer experience across all touch points. 

      For example, someone with strong account management competencies and little affinity for business development will function best in a commercial support function. Customer Success and inside sales are two typical job titles for such a profile. Someone with strong business development competencies and little affinity for account management will thrive on bringing in new customers, and preferably non-recurring customers. 

      Why the hunter – farmer model is no longer adequate 

      The dichotomy between hunters and farmers may have been useful as a shortcut, but today’s more complex sales practice requires a much more nuanced view. Today we see sales profiles more as a unique blend of three competencies that every salesperson possesses to a greater or lesser degree. 

      Today’s reality brings forth new challenges: 

      • The Internet and social media often lead to better informed customers, but just as often to misinformed customers.  
      • The number of people involved in B2B decisions has increased to an average of 6.8 people and can be as high as 20.  
      • Products and services have become more comprehensive and complex. 
      • Market volatility has never been greater. 
      • The speed of change and evolution continues to increase. 

      The best way to deal with this new complexity is to organize sales as a team sport. Make sure all competencies are present in the right dosage so you can offer your customers a consistently positive experience throughout the entire customer journey. 

      Better performance based on your team DNA   

      The distribution of the three sales profiles across your team is what we call your team DNA. That DNA will have an impact on: 

      • How and who you are hiring, and which competencies you need to reinforce  
      • Which roles you assign to the different people in your team  
      • Which skills and knowledge areas need to be developed  
      • How you compose your customer portfolios. For example, you want to avoid having pure acquisition customers in the same portfolio as retention customers. 
      • How you manage and coach each team member in line with what they like to do and what they want to improve in quickly.

      Do you want to maximize the performance and mental fitness of your sales team? Then, first and foremost, you need a certain balance in the available profiles adapted to your goals. An efficient, flexible and balanced team with the right DNA consists of motivated employees who each individually do the right things at the right time, together with the right stakeholders, both internally and with the customer. 

      Discover your team DNA  

      Do you want to map the DNA of your sales team and use this to improve their performance? You can. At Perpetos, we use a sophisticated audit that we can also link to sales performance. 

      For example, in this audit we examine: 

      • The preferences and spontaneous reactions of team members when handling a range of customer situations  
      • Time spent on each type of sales activity
      • Time lost on activities that should not be the responsibility of a sales person 
      • What energizes your sales reps and keeps them mentally fit 
      • To what extent they are satisfied with support from other departments 
      • In some cases, to what extent compensation is perceived as “fair” and in line with expected performance 

      We call this our Account Development Audit™. The audit is most effective for companies that derive a significant portion of their revenue from recurring customers and sales. For companies that sell investment goods for example, we have a different audit that is more suited to that typical environment. 

      An audit of your sales team is an important step towards making better use of the people available to realize your goals.

      Do you want to know more about the possible impact of a DNA analysis of your team?

      The war for talent is raging. On top of that, B2B buying behavior is changing dramatically. Commercial teams have a hard time finding answers to these ongoing challenges. The changing environment has a serious impact on sales functions, responsibilities and competencies. What your sales team needs now is new skills. Even more than that, it needs a program that enables your team to continuously develop and hone its competencies, through an effective learning method. At Perpetos, we call this your Sales Academy.  

      We can think of at least five reasons why your team needs its own Sales Academy: 

      1. Consistent training: A Sales Academy will provide your team with consistent commercial training, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals. This will help to deliver a consistent and positive customer experience in all the touch points with your organization. In turn, this will lead to improved sales effectiveness and better results. 
         
      1. Customized training: By developing your own Sales Academy, you can customize learning according to the specific needs and performance priorities of your company. This requires a company-specific integration between individual competence gaps, business performance gaps, team interactions, effective messaging that engages customers, and new ways of working. This can include messaging about specific products and services, that are most effective and translated into your sales teams’ reality. 
         
      1. Increased sales: Sales is not that different from athletics. Training and mental fitness are key for a top performance. By providing your commercial team with the tools they need to succeed, you can improve their ability to close deals, improve customer loyalty and maximize revenue for your business. 
         
      1. Improved customer experience: Well-trained people in today’s reality understand how people buy and are also better equipped to do their job. By understanding the different phases of the customer journey and knowing how to adjust messaging accordingly, your sales team will be able to influence buyers more successfully and build stronger relationships. 
         
      1. Increased employee retention: Providing continuous learning opportunities will help to improve employee satisfaction and retention. But just as important is a commercial academy to groom sales talent and facilitate internal job mobility, from a technical role into sales and moving on to key account management. All this requires is a well thought out training strategy with competencies linked to learning modules, which allow people to grow in their career and be guided with Just In Time learning.  

      Signing up for a Sales Academy in your B2B organization means that you are serious about installing a culture of continuous improvement, and that you want to stimulate peer-to-peer learning.

      People uplift each other when they are challenged. They acquire new competencies and are being reminded about the things they know but no longer apply. After all, the hardest thing to achieve is closing the gap between knowing and doing.