Women In Sales Awards 2016 (Europe)

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THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SALES WOMAN OF THE YEAR W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 1

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14 SEPTEMBER 2017 N O M I N AT I O N S D E A D L I N E

23 OCTOBER 2017 FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

16 NOVEMBER 2017 J U D G I N G DAY

7 DECEMBER 2017 AWA R D S D I N N E R

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C O N G R AT U L AT I O N S TO A L L T H E F I N A L I STS A N D T H E W I N N E RS F RO M Z A RS M E D I A , P RO U D H OST O F TO N I G H T 'S C E L E B R AT I O N S

In our fast moving world the everyday BRILLIANCE OF GIFTED WOMEN CAN OFTEN GO UNNOTICED.�

Welcome to 2016 European Women In Sales Awards magazine.

I have said before that "In our fast moving world, the everyday brilliance of gifted women can go unnoticed".

We decided to do our bit to correct this by creating the European Women In Sales Awards magazine. The magazine showcases the finalists and winners of the awards. These are professional women on the move, determined to smash through glass ceilings with no apologies or excuses, and with the desire to be the best in their fields.

I suspect future generations may find women-only awards/honours baffling. However, we hope to make a small contribution to an ideal society of equal opportunities, with diverse workforces, by taking the time now to applaud the incredible contributions of women whose revenue generating skills are helping companies and economies all over the globe.

As we celebrate the winners and finalists of the 2016 Women In Sales Awards, I would like to thank the companies who nominated their employees this year and all the nominees who took part.

Our sincere thanks to the judges, speakers, mentors and media partners. We could not have done this without your support.

Finally congratulations to all the finalists and winners. I believe you have an amazing adventure ahead of you.

Thank you and see you in 2017.‎

AFI OFORI

Managing Director, Zars Media

Find latest news about WOMEN IN SALES AWARDS EUROPE and share your experience of the event at: LinkedIn: women-in-sales-awards Facebook: WomenInSalesAwards Twitter: wisawards Google +: +Wisawards

In this magazine

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Bringing Women to the Forefront of Sales Leadership

The Judging Process

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And The WINNERS Are...

Women in Sales Awards Europe 2016 Judges

The Next Generation of Leaders

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7 Sales Mistakes To Avoid in 2017

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Do Millennials Make The BEST Sales People

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Women in Sales Awards Europe 2016 Speakers

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How the Digital Age is Transforming the Sales Process

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The Judging Day

Why Millennials Make Great Salespeople Infographics

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Is Your B2B Sales Team On Track For Success in 2017

Women in Sales Awards Europe 2016 Finalists

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Tips to Increase Leadership Presence

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Your Mission Should You Choose To Accept it....

Success Ability

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Sales is a Man's Job

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THE

WINNERS 6 W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6

OPENING KEYNOTE M E L I S SA D I D O N ATO Chief Revenue Officer SAP

Melissa Di Donato is the Chief Revenue Officer at SAP. Until recently she was the area vice-president of Wave Analytics Cloud at Salesforce. Prior to her role at Salesforce she was the area vice-president of independent software vendor (ISV) and channel programmes for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific (Apac), during which she chaired a European ISV Advisory Innovation Board. She is a board member and adviser to various technology companies in the UK and in Silicon Valley. She is a philanthropist, focusing on Stem initiatives and mentoring women in business. She has recently been named leader of the Tech Working Group of the 30% Club.

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CLOSING KEYNOTE

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VERNON BUBB UK Leadership Team & Head of Enterprise Sales Solutions, EMEA LinkedIn

Transactional Analysis the key to Self-Awareness in Selling

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Are You a Sales Worker Bee

After being a customer of LinkedIn Sales Solutions and securing millions of pounds worth of deals through LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Vernon joined the team where he now leads the organisation in serving its largest customers across EMEA. Their mission as an organisation is to "connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful" and sales professionals are a key participant in this process. Their vision is to elevate the sale profession.

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How B2B Sales Will Change in 2017

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Is 2017 the Year of Value Selling?

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THE WOMEN IN SALES AWARDS EUROPE MAGAZINE JUNE 2016 published by Zars Media 8 Heathfield Court, Fleet, Hampshire GU51 5DX England, United Kingdom Tel.: 01252612025, info@wisawards.com

Design by: Brandbees design.brandbees@gmail.com Photography by Paul Grace www.paulgrace-eventphotos.co.uk Printed by: HART PRESS Ltd www.hartpress.com

On the Cover: CECILIA FURNER, THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SALES WOMAN OF 2016

THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SALES WOMAN OF THE YEAR

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Bringing Women to the Forefront of Sales Leadership

EA

E H B LL

BY

L

In an industry predominately monopolized by a single gender, women are finally taking the sales world by storm and jumping into the driver’s seat for the second half of 2016. From the top females in sales leadership, to the internal Lady Lofters at SalesLoft, the growth within the sales community for women is exponential.

Leah is the Content Marketing Specialist for SalesLoft.

Through interesting and informative content, Leah's goal is to spread the word about modern sales.

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“It was the end of Q3 and we were behind quota. And then in that last week, it was like BOOM email: Danny got a deal. BOOM email: Tyler got a deal. Gladney got a deal.

Everyone was getting deals. But then Milena walks in and closes the biggest deal in company history.”

-STEPHEN SETTLE, S A L E S LO F T S O F T WA R E E N G I N E E R

W

omen in sales are not going to let anyone hold them back. A few months ago, we sat down with sales leaders Trish Bertuzzi, CEO of The Bridge Group, Lori Richardson, B2B Sales Growth Strategist of Score More Sales, and Emmanuelle Skala, VP Sales and Customer Success at DigitalOcean, to talk about breaking down barriers and getting the workforce to 50-50.

Unfortunately, there continues to be a lag in the sales community, where companies are still hiring without gender equality in mind. While tons of organizations are striving to hit that 50-50 gender mark on their sales teams, the scales still lean towards more men, even in the modern sales organization.

But instead of focusing on the sheer lack of numbers when it comes to women in sales leadership, and let’s talk about the performance of the female leaders we’re seeing in the community.

Over the past few months we’ve seen a change the mindsets of these imbalanced organizations, with a large focus on diversity, in general.

While this is a great stride for all modern sales organizations, the most exciting thing to see has been the valiant climb to the top some of our favorite female sales leaders are making each and every day.

Take SalesLoft Account Executive Milena Flament, for example. Week over week, this girlboss has been at the top of the sales leaderboard, either first place or close to it. But the biggest accomplishment thus far: Milena currently holds the record for largest deal size in SalesLoft history.

Now, obviously deal size isn’t all that matters in a modern sales professional’s performance, but it’s certainly a tangible measurement that’s hard to overlook. And when you take a look just past the numbers that made up that deal, what you’ll really see is the impressive effort, attention to detail, and intense determination that have lead Milena to close on deals such as those over the last few weeks.

It’s because of the determination and confidence of powerhouses like Milena that women are stepping up to the plate and making a name for themselves in the male dominated sales leadership industry. The gap is closing every day within modern sales teams, and it’s sales leaders like Trish, Lori, and Emmanuelle that are leading the charge. Women in sales are strong, confident, and impactful, and they should be empowered as such.

We’re starting to get smarter, but we just have a long way to go.

-T R I S H B E R T U Z Z I

So how can you, a modern sales leader, help in continuing this climb to more equality in the sales organization? Continue to be intentional about the language that you use in your marketing, job descriptions, and your social media outlets. What is your social presence saying to women in sales? What does your interview process say to women?

What does your management page say about women? You need to be using language that opens the gate for both genders from the get go.

And it’s not just on you to close the gap. Statistics show that men will apply for a job if they feel like they’re only 70% qualified for a specific role, but women won’t unless they’re at 100%. This is where women in sales need to start negotiating their way to leveling up their career, and taking on bigger responsibilities and opportunities.

As Trish says, “ if you’re not embarrassed by what you just asked for at least once a day, then you’re living in your comfort zone.”

So today’s sales motivation is more of a rally cry for women in sales leadership. Ladies, listen up: You’re not going to get something that you’ve never asked for. It’s all a learning experience, and hopefully the person that tells you no can educate you on why you’re not going to get it. Learn for next time.

Get out of your comfort zone — be brave, step up, and ask for things.

Modern sales is human, and the more you learn to embrace your strength as a professional, the closer we’ll be to becoming a truly modern industry in 2017.

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BY D EI RD

RE

COLEM

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N

Building Leadership Capability that Creates Strategic Differentiation

Editor at eyeforpharma

BUILDING LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY The field of leadership development is at a critical inflection point. How do our organizations out-think, out-strategize, outinnovate and out-execute our competitors?

How do we develop leadership capability that creates strategic differentiation, globally?

“To survive in the twenty first century, we are going to need a new generation of leaders” – WA R R E N G . B E N N I S .

O

nly leadership can bring about transformational change and over the next decade, pharma leadership will face two profoundly difficult challenges: First, reigniting innovation such that it leads to the creation of costeffective, tangible improvements in healthcare. Second, morphing the current organization structures into new forms that nurture collaboration, discovery, experimentation and development – and result in new business models. As global pharma organizations grapple with a more technologically intensive and complex agenda, flaws in traditional approaches to talent management and leadership development are increasingly visible.

Building leadership capabilities is a powerful way of building competitive value yet the track record of leadership development is disappointing. According to the McKinsey report "How Do I Build Leadership Capabilities to Drive Business Performance", organizations must adopt three core approaches and avoid three common pitfalls.

First, they should use performance improvement opportunities within their organizations as the real-life context for learning – and avoid generic, off-the-shelf programs.

Second, they need to build deeper leadership qualities, not just functional skills, so leaders have the resilience and self-awareness to drive and sustain major change. Third, they should shape a “leadership engine” that integrates capability-building with the organization’s broader norms and management processes –as opposed to a series of one-off, disconnected interventions.

LEADING FROM THE EDGE Annmarie Neal, author of “Leading From the Edge” is well-positioned to comment on leadership, having previously held the Chief Talent Officer role in both Cisco Systems and First Data Corporation. Neal is founder of the Center of Leadership Innovation—a worldwide consulting firm that specializes in business innovation and transformation thought leadership and organizational excellence. She brings more than 20 years of global experience, consulting with business executives and senior leaders across a range of industries, to her writing, speaking engagements, business management, and consultation. The book stemmed from Neal’s frustration with leadership capability development and talent management and its failure to translate into strategic differentiation for companies.

Current leadership development practices aren’t working – and in my opinion won’t work in the future".

“The nature of organizations has

changed, and the leaders they require in the future will be fundamentally different from those they require for today’s business demands. It is time to recreate leadership for the requirements of the modern organization. To do so is a formidable leadership challenge. Current leadership development practices aren’t working – and in my opinion won’t work in the future. These practices worked well in an industrial economy where the challenge was to scale efficiency, but are failing to produce the caliber and quantity of leaders we require for an innovation economy, where the demands of leadership are to drive new forms of value creation.

In 2009, for example, U.S. companies spent an estimated $12 billion (24 percent of their overall training budgets) on leadership development.

Yet despite this huge investment, nearly 60 percent of companies report that they face leadership talent shortages that will impede performance in the next few years.

What’s even more alarming for most companies is that nearly 40 percent of their home-grown “high potential leaders” – the people they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop – often fail within the first 18 months of being promoted”.

RECREATING LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Organizations that get leadership development right are able to accelerate priority projects, drive major turnarounds, and continuously improve their execution across the globe. While addressing current business needs, they also prepare themselves to respond to future challenges and opportunities.

“The unspoken reality is that leaders cannot be mass-produced. Yet, current leadership development practices are an attempt to mass-produce leaders. It is time to recognize that the practice of leadership development as we have come to understand it is past it’s ‘sell by’ date, if not entirely obsolete.

The question facing many of our companies around the globe is: what should take its place?

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To be sustainable, any effort to develop leaders must be viewed as a business imperative that is deeply entwined with the organization’s talent and performance management processes, as well as with its broader vision, norms and strategy. In this way, a “leadership engine” can be built into the fabric of the organization – much more powerful than an outsourced, detached set of training programs,” states Neal.

Now more than ever, highly effective leaders can be a powerful source of competitive advantage.

Yet many attempts to improve leadership capabilities fail to make a material impact on an organization’s performance. By linking leadership development tightly to strategic, operational and organizational performance imperatives, addressing deeper personal qualities alongside practical capabilities, and building a sustainable leadership engine, companies can unlock perhaps their greatest hidden asset: the transformative power of their leaders.

ESSENTIAL TRAITS Through extensive research, executive interviews and many years of experiences working in the field of leadership, Annmarie Neal has identified 10 essential traits that differentiates the next generation of global leaders from the rest.

“Over the years, serving as a management consultant and as the corporate lead in charge of executive development, I have assessed and developed thousands of leaders, most of whom were either preparing for or already in significant global assignments. Working closely with these individuals, I have learned that there are certain notable traits that distinguish those who hold global positions from those who are truly (deep in their being) global leaders.”

1

STRONG SENSE OF SELF

An unusually astute sense of self translates into an ability to understand the world and the people around you on many levels and in many different contexts. Purpose to ‘change the world’ coupled with a powerful strength of conviction keeps leaders pushing forward even in the face of obstacles or when pressured by others to do something else.

2

MULTI-MODAL THINKING

Truly exceptional global leaders possess a rare capability to rapidly absorb, synthesize, and organize information that helps them understand the world around them, even when that world is radically different from what they have experienced before. Almost simultaneously, they are able to use that new world view to determine how best to lead themselves and their organizations going forward. This multi-level processing enables them to respond faster and more effectively to market changes and opportunities.

The ability to make connections and interconnections across industries, technologies, markets, and geographies is an incredibly important skill for the global leader, particularly within the pharma industry, given the complexities of the competitive landscape. It is essential to the process of developing strategies and collaborative relationships that keep a company, even an entire industry, relevant over the long term.

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COURAGE TO RECREATE

In order to be continually relevant we need to continually change, knowing when that which has worked in the past is destined for failure going forward. The dilemma faced by many leaders is that when they find a good model, say Dell’s “Build it to Order,” they have a hard time letting go. For global leaders, this dilemma is amplified, given the need to operate multiple business models simultaneously around the world. Truly global leaders need the intellectual acuity to know what to keep, what to destroy, and what to recreate across their organizations, in order to remain relevant to myriad markets and constituents. The health care industry is under massive reinvention – or at least should be.

How will pharma leaders step back, consider how industry trends coupled with market needs will challenge today’s business models and then evaluate how to recreate the future.

New forms of value creation are on the horizon – and if the core industry doesn’t solve for these opportunities, new competitors will have room to enter and disrupt.

4

EXPERIMENTAL MIND

While more of an operations focus and engineering mentality may have been successful in the past, today's leaders need to be more of an inventor and an experimenter, willing to try out a new idea (a hypothesis) and recognize that failure (disproving the

hypothesis) can be just as valuable, if not more so, than when the hypothesis turns out to be correct.

Experimentation has traditionally been a core competence within the pharma industry which has birthed brilliant product innovations. How can these same disciplines be applied to business models, go-to-market strategies and operational efficiencies?

5

FREEDOM TO FAIL, FAST

Failure is a necessary ingredient to success. Leaders need to learn how to fail: How to understand it, learn from it, and importantly how to recover from it (emotional resilience). Learning how to fail is essential if you want to know how to be successful. Failure is not the opposite of success but rather an integral part of the invention, reinvention, and innovation process.

Within each failure are lessons that develop experienced judgment to apply to subsequent reinvention or innovative projects.

6

CONSTRUCTIVE COLLABORATION

Today’s leaders need to see their corporations as if they are part of living systems, in which the success of the individual is dependent upon the success of the larger whole. In the business world, they understand that the success of the corporation is dependent on the success of the broader ecosystems. Never before has the power of collaboration been so critical to the pharma industry. Companies will see the next big innovations and product opportunities coming less from

their R&D teams and more from collaboration communities within the ecosystem.

7

BALANCE BETWEEN CONTROL AND CHAOS

Today’s leaders also need to not only learn to live with, but also to appreciate, messiness on the outer edge of their organizations. This requires co-existing in two worlds, one that is more reminiscent of the past, where a certain level of control and oversight is important to drive today's performance expectations, and another where the leader sets the vision and then gives permission to those working on the edge to self-organize and find solutions - often to problems that have not even been considered or created.

By understanding and balancing the needs of both worlds, leaders can help their organizations stay profitable today, which can help financially support innovation for the future. To do so, leaders need to be comfortable with the messiness inherent in a knowledge (versus industrial) economy.

8

GLOBAL CHANGE AGENT

Leadership, especially at a global level, has a tremendous capacity to change the world, for good or for bad. Unlike industrial age thinking that at times disregarded or diminished the importance of environmental and social responsibility, leaders today need to be much more aware of the impact their operations have and are adjusting processes and policies to promote sustainability.

Pharma leaders are well positioned to do good with their products, solutions and services. How will organizations not only create value for the capital markets but also the social environments in which they serve? How will they use the power of their intellectual property to drive economic as well as social value creation?

9

EMPATHY AS A BUSINESS IMPERATIVE

For many business people, a word like empathy seems too soft for the fiercely competitive, resultsdriven world in which they live.

But empathy can yield some very tangible business results on many fronts, from employee engagement to product design to identifying new market opportunities.

10

AUTHENTICITY

Authenticity is even more critical in a world of social networking, where anything you do or say can be captured and shared with the rest of connected humanity in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. For Frits van Paasschen, CEO of Starwood Properties, transparency is a fact of life. In his manifesto on leadership, written in early 2012 for the employees of his worldwide hotel and resort network, Frits says, “It is not enough to have a strong brand or a great product. People expect to know about the company behind the brand and the people behind the product”.

Thanks to Facebook, Wikileaks, and LinkedIn—there are virtually no degrees of separation anymore. All the world’s a digital stage.

Truly exceptional global leaders possess a rare capability to rapidly absorb, synthesize, and organize information that helps them understand the world around them, even when that world is radically different from what they have experienced before. Almost simultaneously, they are able to use that new world view to determine how best to lead themselves and their organizations going forward. This multilevel processing enables them to respond faster and more effectively to market changes and opportunities. The ability to make connections and interconnections across industries, technologies, markets, and geographies is an incredibly important skill for the global leader.

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Do

millennials Make the Best Sales People?

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BY D A

Millennials could easily be compared to Marmite, either you like them or you don't! Some people do believe that this generation are different and are having a huge impact on the world today where as others don't want to stereotype or group people together.

N

DISNEY

Founder - The Daily Sales Social Selling Evangelist, Sales Trainer @TheDailySales

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T H E Y L I V E A N D B R E AT H E IN THE

MILLENNIALS WANT TO U N D E R S TA N D T H E

One of the key attributes associated with millennials is their knowledge and understanding of digital and technology. Millennials are the generation that have been bought up on rapidly evolving technology and social platforms.

With 78% of sales people who use social media outselling their peers this knowledge of social, digital and tech has a huge advantage for them. Customers are now giving away so much information and so many buying signals on social media and significantly stronger sales relationships can be built by utilizing that.

Millennials have been bought up in the information age where content and data is thrown at them each and every second. This encourages them to look at their jobs in a far more analytical way which is great for sales.

By breaking down sales processes, understanding trends and utilizing technology to enhance it they stand a much greater chance of succeeding. They're not afraid to challenge the status quo and will always look for faster more effective ways to achieve results.

digital world

M

illennials can often be seen as either high maintenance and lazy or digitally advanced and savvy.

To be fair the same could probably be said for sales people, either you love them or you hate them. They're either pushy and arrogant or informative and helpful.

Could it be then that perhaps Millennials may make the BEST sales people...?

Let's look at the common attributes associated with millennials:

science of selling

MILLENNIALS A R E FA R M O R E

adaptive It's been found that millennials adapt twice as fast as the rest of the world to new technologies. With the sales landscape changing along with the way in which customers buy this ability to adapt quickly is crucial.

This ability to adapt also has a huge impact on being able to mirror your prospects and customers. The most successful sales people are able to change the way they engage to mirror the people they speak too.

MILLENNIALS ARE

entrepreneurial

T H E Y believe I N W H AT T H E Y ' R E SELLING

Over 50% of millennials that have been surveyed hoped to start their own business one day or already had done. On top of that over 90% of millennials believe that being an entrepreneur is a mindset and not just something limited to someone starting a company.

This passion for business and entrepreneurial thinking is a huge advantage if they are working in sales and is often a key attribute for success in sales. Working in sales is the closest thing to running your own business, your actions have a direct link to what you achieve and earn.

Millennials are more interested in making a difference than selling a product and so are far more likely to believe in what they're selling. Instead of going with the stereotypical aggressive sales approach they are more focused on being seen as an expert or thought leader and guiding customers to the right solution.

You see more and more sales relationships with millennial sales people being built on trust, understanding and respect. They're not worried about whether or not the customer buys but about finding the best solution and building long lasting relationships.

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I N S U M M A R Y. . .

All of this may not always mean that millennials make the best sales people, there are plenty of millennials who aren't good sales people!

However the attributes that are associated with millennial workers are certainly very transferable to the sales profession and if followed could certainly create some of the best sales people in the industry.

One of my biggest passions at the moment is to transform the perception of sales people. I do not believe that sales people are in any way like the stereotype that they are perceived as. Modern sales people are passionate professionals who are focused on helping people and businesses.

When you look at the above attributes they represent this change and they represent what sales people should be.

30 minutes is all we need to assess over 50 selling skills

We found the USSA assessment to be of high validity and consistent with individual sales performance.

The five modules covered almost all of the key areas in sales competency and the team reports offered a very clear comparison for both individuals as well as identifying team strength and weaknesses. It can be used for sales talent screening during both interview and personnel development processes.

RACHEL ZHANG, HR DEPARTMENT MANAGER, VNU EXHIBITIONS ASIA

The Universal Sales Skills Audit is a 30 minute assessment that will compare your sales staff’s skills performance profile with over 23,000 previous candidates.

Conducted online from your own licensee portal, the USSA is easy to use, reliable, economical and makes an immediate improvement to your team’s sales performance.

Recruiting sales executives? A perfect candidate filtering tool Existing teams? The USSA has full team reporting functionality as well as the ability to compare teams against one another International? The USSA is available in multiple languages Flexible payments? The USSA is pay-as-you-go, assess yourself or a team of 5,000. You decide how much and when.

Over 23,000 assessments and rising. Find out why we are #1 when it comes to sales skills assessment

www.UniversalSalesSkillsAudit.com T: +44 (0) 1244 680 222

E: info@ussa.email

Why millennials Make Great Salespeople Thanks to Chief Revenue Officer of Inbound Sales at Hubspot, Mark Roberge, who wrote an article for Sales & Marketing Management on which this infographic is based.

Millennials get a bad rap. Many employers have been quick to dismiss this generation as lazy, vain and self-concerned. But there are two sides to every story, especially when it comes to building a 21st century sales organization.

Let’s explore how why a millennial might just be your next best hire.

atives N l a it g i D e r ’ y e Th Being native to digital tools is not just for marketers anymore. Social platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, & Facebook) are now keystones in the sales game, setting top performers apart from their competition.

Millennials adopt new technologies

2x 78%

of salespeople are using social media to outsell colleagues & peers

faster than the rest of the world

That includes tools like Salesforce, Google Drive and Evernote is second nature. The smooth transition to digital tools and automation saves time and helps streamline the entire sales process around specific tools.

LinkedIn and Twitter are invaluable for listening, engaging, and building relationships with prospects. While social selling is a relatively new buzz term for the industry as a whole, it is second nature to millenials.

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They Live & Bre a

the Your Produ ct

Millennials and your customers have one vital thing in common: they’re drawn to a company’s mission first and foremost.

“

Younger reps don’t just sell your product, they believe in it.

Instead of using aggression, millennials succeed because they know everything prospects ever need to know about your product or service and then some.

57%

of the buyer’s purchase decision is made before they even talk to sales

Millennials don’t skip a beat when it comes to gearing themselves with product knowledge and going above and beyond the FAQ page, which helps them sell to more informed buyers. Their commitment to your company creates valuable interactions for your prospects and business.

ial

eneur They’re Entrepr

The Millennial generation has entrepreneurialism in their DNA.

Their entrepreneurial nature makes them solution-oriented, creative, and hungry.

50%

of millennials surveyed hope to start their own business one day (or already have).

Whether it’s responding to emails with a creative meme, building relationships through personal branding, or working with theirteam to create unorthodox discounts, creativity and problem solving have replaced traditional sales methods.

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50% 50%

of millennials surveyed hope to start their own business one day (or already have). of millennials surveyed hope to start their own business one day (or already have).

through personal branding, or working with Whether it’s responding to emails with a theirteam to create unorthodox discounts, creative meme, buildingsolving relationships creativity and problem have through personal branding, or methods. working with replaced traditional sales theirteam to create unorthodox discounts, creativity and problem solving have replaced traditional sales methods.

They’re Data Dr iven They’re Data Dr iven Thanks to their digital disposition, millennial salespeople are quick to dive into the metrics that determine key differences between a top performer’s efforts and the rest of the pack.

Thanks to their digital disposition, millennial salespeople are quick to dive into the metrics that Millennials selling as a science. determine key approach differences between a top performer’s efforts and the rest of the pack.

A B A B

They test everything from subject line, to time of day, length of email, Millennials selling asbecause a science. etc.

This A/B testingapproach is crucial and made possible millennial salespeople embrace data and technology and innately use it to their They test everythingadvantage from subject to time of day, length of email, on line, the sales field. etc. This A/B testing is crucial and made possible because millennial salespeople embrace data and technology and innately use it to their Since the buying behavior of prospects advantage on the has saleschanged field. drastically in recent years, millennials’ solution driven approach meshes well with more informed buyers. Rather than controlling conversations, using empathy and data are hugely important (and millennials do them Since the buying behavior of prospectsexceptionally has changedwell). drastically in recent years, millennials’ solution driven approach meshes well with more informed buyers. Rather than controlling conversations, using empathy and data are hugely important (and millennials do them exceptionally well).

ean? m l l a t i ’s t a h W ? n a e m l l a t i ’s t Wha Millennials are free of bad habits, motivated by your product, and able to fit in to today’s world of evolving technology and Millennials are free bad habits, might just of be... motivated by your product, and able to fit in to today’s world of evolving technology and might just be...

Your next best hire.

Your next best hire.

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NATIONAL SALES CONFERENCE 2017

30th November Ricoh Arena

E D U C AT E • M O T I VAT E • I N N O VAT E

The UK’s Leading Sales Development & Training Day

“

The NSC is a great community for sales people of all levels. The opportunity to hear from leaders in the field, to exchange best practice with fellow delegates and to participate in improving the sales discipline is invaluable

”

Maggie Buggie Global Sales Officer, Digital - Capgemini

Super Saver Ticket available until the 23rd December 2016 - only £195+vat Book now: www.sales-expo.co.uk

Official CRM Partner:

Organised by:

SE

Y G O MA ,P H . D.

BY

N

N

CAROL K I

Tips to Increase Leadership Presence

International keynote speaker and leadership presence coach. Author of "The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help - or Hurt - How You Lead" Carol@CarolKinseyGoman.com www.CarolKinseyGoman.com

L

eadership presence, that illusive but “we know it when we see it” quality, is a blending of personal and interpersonal skills that when combined, send all the right signals. It’s how we show up, how we make others feel, and how effectively we communicate both verbally and nonverbally. It's the "wow" factor that sets you up for the next promotion and gives your career that extra boost.

That's what it is. Here is what leadership presence is not: •

It is not an attribute that is automatically assigned to you because of your business results.

•

It is not necessarily reflective of your true qualities and potential.

Instead, it depends entirely on how other people in the workplace evaluate you. The first key to building leadership presence is to realize that it is all about impression management. As Suzy Monford, CEO Andronico’s, told me: “You need to show up each day the way you want to be perceived – which is simple to say, but difficult to accomplish unless you do your homework and really know yourself.”

I agree. Leadership presence needs to be rooted in your basic values – and the “homework” of knowing your strengths, weaknesses, talents and biases is crucial to aligning people’s impression of you with your best authentic self. But I am also aware that small attitudinal or behavioral changes can have an instant and powerful effect on how others perceive you.

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You need to show up each day the way you want to be perceived – which is simple to say, but difficult to accomplish unless you do your homework and really know yourself.

- CAROL KINSEY GOMAN

As a leader (or a potential leader) you are constantly being evaluated on how well you display confidence, composure, credibility, connection, and charisma. Here are the simple strategies that can influence people’s impression of you and dramatically increase your leadership presence:

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POWER UP YOUR CONFIDENCE BY PRIMING YOUR BRAIN Self-confidence is the personality trait most responsible for an individual being seen as having leadership presence. In “The Confidence Effect: Every Woman’s Guide to the Attitude that Attracts Success,” author Grace Killelea sees the lack of confidence in business women as a major obstacle to their career progression: "While men are prone to overestimate their abilities, all too often women sell themselves short and needlessly languish in marginalized careers. Realizing a high level of achievement requires women to speak out, take risks and assume leadership positions with perceptible self-assurance, but too many otherwise qualified women are not living up to their full potential.

Carol Kinsey Goman at Women In Sales Awards Europe 2015

Aspiring women must become more inherently confident with the kind of authenticity that will get them noticed and take their careers to new heights.”

Confident people (male and female) attract followers by being selfmotivated, assured, and willing to take risks. But even the most confident people may suffer a crisis of self-doubt, and that’s where having a personal strategy becomes crucial.

One key to displaying confidence is to change your physical posture by standing straight, holding your head up and pulling your shoulders back - or even holding a “Superman” or “Wonder Woman” pose for two minutes to elevate your testosterone (the power hormone) level.

But another, equally effective strategy, is to prime your brain for higher confidence by recalling a time when you had power over another person or performed a task extremely well. Focus on what happened, how you felt, and what that experience was like. This doesn’t have to be a business-related event. It’s the emotional memory you are tapping into. Research shows that even thinking about a time when you felt physically attractive can increase your level of confidence.

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RETAIN YOUR COMPOSURE WITH THIS MANTRA On the popular U.S. television show Shark Tank, entrepreneurs pitch their companies/products/ideas to a panel of potential investors. One of those investors, Barbara Corcoran, describes how the contestants have to stand in front of the “sharks” for a full five minutes without saying a word as studio lighting is adjusted.

Corcoran says, “When I watch someone who’s under tremendous pressure, that is a great test. Even before they open their mouth I know who I’m out on. I just sort of come up with a reason ‘why’ that I can say on camera. But the truth is I know when I’m out fight away because the guy takes his hands out of his pockets, then he’s shifting, he’s no longer making eye contact, he’s sweating bullets, his knees are jiggling. I mean is this a guy I’m going to give my money to?”

You may never be a contestant on Shark Tank, but in any job interview, sales presentation or important business conversation, your emotions (and subsequently your performance) can get highjacked by high levels of stress.

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John Sudol, author of “Acting: Face to Face,” coaches actors on how to prepare for an audition, and he offers an interesting insight that applies equally well to business professionals: “One of the things that can throw you off a wellprepared game plan might surprise you. It’s the snap judgments you make about what you read on the interviewer's face. In an audition, that automatic judgment can provoke a variety of unwanted feelings and thoughts, such as anxiety, self-doubt, and insecurity.

If enough stress is produced it can trigger a limbic response and put you into a freeze-fight-or-flee state.

But when we view someone's face from a place of inner security, we know that what’s on their face is about them, so I’ve adopted the mantra ‘What’s on their face is not about me!’ These words have saved me numerous of times when speaking in large rooms looking out and seeing facial billboards flashing judgment, criticism, boredom, doubt, suspicion. Most often, and ironically, those are the very same people who will approach me after the lecture to thank me for my work and their favorable experience in the audience that day!”

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GAIN INSTANT CREDIBILITY WHEN YOU SAY THE WORD BECAUSE

CONNECT MORE POWERFULLY

BY INCREASING YOUR NETWORKING SAVVY

Credibility is all about how you communicate. It’s about body language that’s aligned with your verbal message and it’s about being truthful, diplomatic, empathetic, succinct, and decisive. But certain words and phrases have almost magical powers to instantly increase your credibility. The word because is one of them.

Capital is defined as "accumulated wealth, especially as used to produce more wealth." Social capital is the wealth or benefit that exists because of your social relationships.

I think of social capital as the value created by your connection to others. There is no more valuable commodity in today's business environment, and no more valuable use of your time than to build your professional network, within and external to your organization.

A study at Harvard, asked people to break into a line of strangers waiting to make photocopies. When asked simply if they could use the photocopier (“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the machine?”), research subjects were successful 60% of the time. However, when a reason beginning with the word because was added (“May I use the photocopier because I’m in a rush”), the request gained instant credibility, and compliance skyrocketed to 94%.

What’s more amazing, it didn’t seem to matter what the given reason was (“May I use the photocopier because I need to make copies”), compliance remained at about the same level, 93%.

Gayle Hallgren-Rezac and Judy Thomson, networking masters and the co-authors of WORK THE POND! Use the Power of Positive Networking to Leap Forward in Work and Life told me the “secret” to optimizing any opportunity to network: Networking is not about promoting yourself or getting new business. It’s about creating or deepening professional relationships.

Try this at your next networking event: Enter each conversation with the goal of finding something that you can do for the other person.

The minute you take the focus off

‘What’s on their face is not about me!’

These words have saved me numerous of times when speaking in large rooms looking out and seeing facial billboards flashing judgment, criticism, boredom, doubt, suspicion. Most often, and ironically, those are the very same people who will approach me after the lecture to thank me for my work and their favorable experience in the audience that day!

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The body language of warmth includes positive eye contact, smiles (which we don’t see enough of in the workplace) and open postures in which legs are uncrossed, and arms are held away from your body, with palms exposed or resting comfortably on the desk or conference table.

promoting yourself and put it on assisting others, you dramatically improve your ability to connect.

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TO DISPLAY YOUR NATURAL CHARISMA, WARM UP YOUR BODY LANGUAGE. It’s well known that people won’t always remember what you say, but they will never forget how you make them feel. I’ve found that when I speak with a successful executive, I get the feeling that he or she is wonderful – but when I speak with a charismatic leader, I’m made to feel that I am wonderful! My emotional reaction has a lot to do with the body language of the two types of leaders: The first embodies nonverbal cues of confidence and power (which

accentuates their prestige and status), while the second radiates charisma through warm, inclusive, and open body language. You will have the most impact if you can send both sets of signals, remembering that studies show leaders with warm body language are perceived more positively and are more persuasive.

The body language of warmth includes positive eye contact, smiles (which we don’t see enough of in the workplace) and open postures in which legs are uncrossed, and arms are held away from your body, with palms exposed or resting comfortably on the desk or conference table.

Mirroring is another nonverbal sign of genuine warmth and empathy.

You may not realize it, but when you are dealing with people you like or agree with, you’ll automatically

begin to match their stance, arm positions and facial expressions.

It’s a way of signaling that you are connected and engaged.

And when it comes to charismatic body language, facing people directly when they’re talking is crucial. It shows that you are totally focused on them. Even a quarter turn away signals a lack of interest and makes the other person feel discounted. Of course, giving others your complete attention when they are speaking is one of the warmest signals you can send.

While there are many behavioral and attitudinal steps you can take to dramatically increase your leadership presence, these five simple strategies are a good place to start.

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Sales is a Man’s Job!

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ear on year we see more and more women pass out from universities and join the corporate ranks, then where do they go? Most of them choose not to go in for sales as a profession and the hand full who do face an uphill battle against the unconscious bias we all carry.

I remember a senior leader in one of my previous organisations once commented “Oh! women don’t have to sell…they just have to look good and ask for the deal and they get it”. I have been in sales for almost two decades now but I was really upset at that comment because, to me as a woman you have to try harder to break this bias! Every time I win a deal I have tried harder to add value to the client situation rather than just winning it because I am a woman.

I have had the opportunity to recently interact with many diversity and HR leaders and confirmed our belief that

women just don’t want to take on sales roles as much as men do. Maybe it’s because we are stuck in viscous cycle where, because we don’t have woman in the team there are strong biases which in turn leads to a set up no women wants to join!

SO WHAT CAN WE DO TO BREAK THIS CYCLE? Firstly, we should stop educating our organizations on diversity and start educating them on inclusion. It may seem like a play of words but, the word diversity stands for respecting differences which is the root cause of the biases. Inclusion is about respecting everyone and including them for who they are irrespective of gender, age, culture etc. Yes, women are different but so are men, so are millineals and our Gen Z. Our cultures need to be inclusive to identify the strengths each brings to the table. As a women in sales I take pride in the fact that I have high situational awareness, being a mother sharpens that within you. I have also realised that while men don't want to think differently in certain situations, women tend to be more creative. I have noticed many of my women peers have these strengths.

Secondly, we need to look within the organisation to identify women willing to be groomed in sales roles because; they will find it easier to connect with the team. Mostly one sees women in marketing, pre sales and product teams and for them the

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transitions into pure sales roles will be quick and easy. Providing platforms to groom just like the high potential leadership tracks, needs to advocated for account managers, business acquisition roles as well.

Finally, as an organisation we need to build pursuit teams with an equal mix of men and women working together leveraging the synergy of their strengths rather than putting any one of them on a spot. Many of the World Class Organizations we partner with have strong pursuit teams working on large deals. This is where the account manager brings together enabling function representatives to work cohesively to win opportunities. We don't always need to mash our stregths up to make marmalade, often being a fruit salad allows you to leverage in the strong flavors of each persona.

It is not about being feminist, let’s stop this lip service for diversity and take concrete steps in breaking biases and creating an ethos where everyone can get an opportunity to grow.

Sales is a job. We are all stronger together when we respect and celebrate our differences and leverage each others strengths.

BY PR IY

In B2B sales I think people believe in this myth, I have observed this while conducting sales interventions wherein, on an average there is less than 5% representation of women.

What’s keeping women away from these roles?

A

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W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 2 7

The Judging Process THE JUDGES A group of 18 senior executives from various industries were carefully selected as an evaluation panel of independent judges. Their objective was to review the nominations and interview each of the finalists.

WHY AN INTERVIEW WITH THE JUDGES?

THE FINALISTS TIME WITH THE JUDGES

A face-to-face interview allows the judges to further assess each finalist’s sales skills, strategies and process etc. The interview also complements their review of the submitted nomination forms.

This was an opportunity for the finalists to engage the judges by telling them the story of their success. Each judge awarded points across the same criteria. After the interview, all finalists answered one final question: “why they should win the award in their category?”

THE JUDGING DAY The judges were organised into 6 groups; each group was made up of 3 judges and interviewed a number of finalists within their assigned categories. Nomination forms and any supporting documents were reviewed by the judges prior to a nominee being selected as a finalist. Each nomination was evaluated and scored out of a total of 5 points. The next stage of the process was a face to face interview with the judges.

All the 18 judges scored each finalist on the final question.

Each finalist’s overall score was the sum of the scores from the interview with the 3 judges in their category plus the scores from all 12 judges on the final question. The finalist with the highest score in each category was selected as the winner in that category.

THE DISTINGUISHED SALES WOMAN OF THE YEAR AWARD This award is for the finalist who impressed the judges the most and scored the highest among all the finalists.

The standard of finalist at the Women In Sales Awards continues to set a bench for all sales professionals to aspire to. A real privilege to meet so many outstanding individuals from all industries.

- M AT T H E W G O D DA R D WISA EUROPE 2016 JUDGE

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“Amazing female talent across all categories, which made judging day difficult and wonderful in equal measure!”

- K ARINA GARCIA CASIL WISA EUROPE 2016 JUDGE

“It’s great to see such prestigious awards going from strength to strength and providing such great candidates a forum to shine. Sales is a skilled profession and we need more pedestals like WISA to promote this to the masses.”

- I A N M OY S E WISA EUROPE 2016 JUDGE

FAQs WHO ARE THE JUDGES? WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? Zars Media invites judges from countries all over Europe. Judges may be executives with social innovation expertise, business people, educators and university administrators and leading practitioners in the field.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE JUDGES? We usually look for executives with sales backgrounds and with more than 15 years sales experience. We actively recruit and also take suggestions from partners, mentors and past judges.

WHAT DO THE JUDGES EVALUATE? Judges review all the entries within their assigned categories and give their scores as per the guidelines.

This will include reviewing the nomination forms and any confidential supplemental documents and project information that is included in the application.

IS THE JUDGING BY INVITATION ONLY, OR CAN I APPLY TO BE A JUDGE? We recruit judges after screening their profiles using LinkedIn and other news sources. We are happy to consider suggestions. If you'd like to be considered, or suggest future judges, please email judges@wisawards.com

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Women in Sales Awards 2016 Judges

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1 A M A N DA A B E R N E T H Y Formerly Director, European Business Transformation, Xerox Europe

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2 C L A I R E C U R ZO N Managing Director, Brighter Directions

5 JA N E O R E M O S U Sales Director, Legal, UK&I Thomson Reuters

8 L I Z E M M OT T UK Sales Director Amadeus IT

3 GA R E T H R O B E R T S Regional Sales Director Jelf Insurance Brokers

6 J E R E M Y A L D E R TO N MD Independent & Private Schools , UK & Ireland, Sodexo

9 LO R N A ( DA K E R S) L EC K Managing Director The Sales Activator Ltd

4 I A N M OYS E Sales Director Axios Systems

7 K A R I N A GA R C I A C A S I L Director, Global Sales Processes, Adobe

10 M A LC O L M S TO O D L E Y CEO, Media Locum

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We are thrilled that the event is growing. This year we had to increase the number of judges from the 12 to 19. We would like to thank the event judges for so generously taking time out of their busy schedules to participate in the 2016 Women In Sales Awards. Without your support, dedication and effort, the event would not have been possible.

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11 MARTIN MORAN GM and SVP of EMEA InsideSales.com

14 NICOLA ROBINSON UK & International Sales Director Kettle Foods UK

17 S T UA R T A L L E N Managing Director, The Sales Performance Company ​

12 M AT T H E W G O D DA R D Head of Field Sales ​PepsiCo UK

15 P H I L H O LV E Y Director of Direct Sales and Consultancy Services Konica Minolta

18 T E D R OY N E W E L L Commercial Director Responding to Climate Change, RTCC

13 MIRIAM MEIJERS VAN MAASDEIJK Director Sales Strategy ​Verizon Enterprise Solutions

16 R AV L E E N B E E S TO N Head of Sales, Bing UK Microsoft

19 T I F FA N Y W I L L I A M S Sales & Marketing Consultant formerly at LinkedIn

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Women in Sales Awards 2016 Speakers

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1 C AT H E R I N E S C H A L K Operations Director Conversation Intelligence

5 K AT I E DAY Director, RDPI

9 R AC H E L FO R G H A M Director of Customer Success, InsideSales.com

2 IAN MILLS CEO, Transform People International

6 K U N A L M E H TA Senior Director of Sales Strategy and Operations, Infoblox

10 SAS HUNT WOOD Sales & Creative Director, Sales Acceleration Strategies

3 JAC Q U E S S C I A M M A S President, Selling to Executives and Executive Resources Group

7 L E E C OT T L E Director, GM & VP Global Head of Sales Push Technology

11 TO N I R E D M A N Director, Account Development – EMEA, Adobe Systems

4 JAVA I D I Q B A L C-Suite Advisor on Digital Customer Transformation, Global Keynote

8 M A R I A A N TO N I O U Managing Director, Prothos

12 VA L AG N E W Managing Client Partner, Global Sales Team, EMEA, Verizon

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The judging day comprised more than the judging itself. Finalists were engaged throughout the day in panel discussions made possible by this year’s speakers. The speakers kept the finalists engaged in thought provoking debates when outside of the judging room and we would like to express our sincerest thanks and gratitude to them for contributing to the judging day forum.

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“To succeed in advancing to your own company's Executive Suite, learn the various goals and challenges of the different executives and see how you can help them. Not only you'll get a macro view of your own company, but you'll also differentiate yourself, get recognized and likely rewarded�

- J AC Q U E S S C I A M M A S WISA EUROPE 2016 SPEAKER

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“A truly remarkable experience, the future of sales and business is in good hands with the extremely high calibre of the finalists at the Women in Sales Awards” - SAS HUNT WOOD WISA EUROPE 2016 SPEAKER

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NOVEMBER 2016

“All I can say is WOW! The standard of the amazingly talented women grows and grows every year. It’s a privilege to be involved as a judge and I’m so excited to see that the Women In Sales Awards is playing such a great part in positively influencing the sales talent we’ll have across many industries in the future” - NICOLA ROBINSON WISA EUROPE 2016 JUDGE

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INNER D W

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MEET THE 2016

“Always challenge the status Quo”

"Fear is the cheapest room in the house.

I would like to see you live in better conditions"

"I never dreamed about success.

I worked for it."

- HAFIZ

- E ST É E L AU D E R

A L E XA N D R A E VA N S

A B I GA I L DAV I S

ANAMARIA MAIOR

“No matter what, having the drive and desire to succeed can push you forward to success”

“More powerful than you can possibly image”

“Carpe Diem”

“I always believed that one women’s success can only help another women’s success”

CA RO L I N E E VA N S

A N I TA B RO O K

ANGELA MOFFITT

"If you spot an opportunity and are really excited by it, throw yourself into it with everything you've got."

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."

- ZIG ZIGLAR

- G LO R I A VA N D E R B I LT

– R I C H A R D B R A N SO N

C EC I L I A F U R N E R

“Be empathetic, think positive, leverage all your resources and lead with passion”

C H LO E H O L LOWAY

C E L I N E GA I G N E

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- M AYA A N G E LO U

C H R I ST I N A B RO N SC H

C L A I R E E D MWUONMDS EN IN

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way” - J O H N M AXW E L L

C /L AE UI RR O E PLE A- D DSE M B E R 2 0 1 6 3 7 S A L E S AWA R D S D EC

“When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen”

“Think big!”

“You ask, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?”

- M A R I A N N E W I L L I A M SO N .

CFRANCESCA L A I R E P H I LDUGGER LISKIRK

D O M I N I Q U E B E RTSC H

“Here’s to strong women.

May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them”

“Dance like nobody's watching”

- U N K N OW N

– A N N L A N D E RS

GILL BLINKHORN

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars.”

- NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

SHAMALAJA BALASUBRAMANIAM N E S N OW D E N

“I strongly believe success is accelerated via teamwork”

H I L D E H O O R N E N B O RG

IRIS BOEKHOUT

“Maybe sometimes it's riskier not to take a risk.

Sometimes all you're guaranteeing is that things will stay the same.”

“For me, the most important thing to remember is that people sell to people and by using this methodology I have found you can never go far wrong”

- DA N N Y WA L L AC E , YES MAN

J E SS I CA G I SS I N G

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

J OA N N A H Y D E

“My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."

- OPRAH WINFREY

ALEXIA CLEMENTS

E M I LY O RGA N

OA E B RRDI D 3 8 W O M E N I NJ S ALN E SNAWA SG / EEU R O P E - D EC E M B E R J2 U 0 1L6E S

CLARK

“If people like you they’ll listen to you, if people trust you they’ll do business with you” - ZIG ZIGLAR

J U L I E F E DY K

“Remember that failure is an event, not a person.

Yesterday ended last night.”

“Get closer than ever to your customers.

So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”

– ZIG ZIGLAR

"Success is not an accident, success is a choice"

- ST E V E J O B S

K AT I E N I L A N D

K AY L E I G H B OT TO M L E Y

K E L L I E K WA RT E N G

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

“How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win”

- V I DA L SASSO O N

– G I L B E RT K .

C H E ST E RTO N

“To do a thing we fear is the first step to success” K L Á R A PAU LO ČÁ KOVÁ

L AU R A Mc K I N L AY

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”

“Creating a diverse workforce is more than just ‘the right thing to do’, it’s a business imperative”

“Work hard and have integrity with everything you do”

- M AYA A N G E LO U

LO R R A I N E T W I G G

LU CY A DA M

“You never fail until you stop trying” - A L B E RT E I N ST E I N

“Invest time, encourage ownership, be consistent, build credibility and execute” M I E L I SA E VA N S

L AU R A M O N I Z D E A R AGAO

M A RY K AY

“If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you’re not sure you can do it, say yes then learn how to do it later” - R I C H A R D B R A N SO N

NIKKI LEWIS

AEC R DS W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R DN S I/K EKUI RR OIPC EH - D EMBER 2016 39

“Customer satisfaction is my passion in sales, and if you do something you are passionate about, then the success will follow”

“I don’t see sales as selling, but more as enabling my clients in getting ahead in their businesses” ROWA N JA M E SO N

RU P I N D E R BA H R A

“You never lose.

You either win or learn” - N E LSO N M A N D E L A

- K A R R E N B R A DY

SA R A B I B BY

“Great things in business are never done by one person.

They're done by a team of people”

“Your attitude is the librarian of your past, the speaker of your present and the prophet of your future”

- ST E V E J O B S

- E ST É E L AU D E R

SA M A N T H A AT K I N SO N

“The only reason to look down on another woman?

If you’re helping them up”

SA N D R I N E SC H N E I D E R

"I didn't get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it."

“The joy of leaning in, is once you can do it and you get good at it, you bring others with you” – M E L I N DA GAT E S

SA R A H CA L ASC I O N E

“You can make a difference – in your own company and in your customer's organizations!”

- J O H N M AXW E L L

SHAMALA BALASUBRAMANIAM SA R A H DAV IES

TA N YA LU CAS

“Smile, take a chance, and don’t be afraid of your freedom”

“Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can” ALEXIA Y VO N N E CLEMENTS KU SC H I L L

ZO E H A R R I S

V E RO N A V U LCA N O

Congratulations to everybody involved with this year’s Women In Sales Awards WE’LL BE SEEING YOU NEXT YEAR IN OUR FEBRUARY 2017 EDITION… Look out for interviews with many of tonight’s participants plus a full report of this year’s Awards.

THE INTERNATIONAL

Journal of Sales Transformation is the leading publication exclusively focused on the promotion of sales excellence among global corporates.

Our content is a mix of quality journalism, insightful opinion and research by current sales leaders and academics.

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL SALES

Our mission is to help enhance the professionalism of sales organisations by bridging the gap between businesses and academic research to offer the best of both worlds.

Find out more at: www.journalofsalestransformation.com To receive a free trial copy, please email editor@journalofsalestransformation.com

Your Mission Should You Choose to Accept it…

Success-Ability

A

ND

R A WAT S

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BY A L E X

So how do you become more successful without overwhelm and burnout?

The secret is, it is an inside job…

Leading Success Mentor, a BestSelling Author and creator of The Successful Mind Method

A

h, the inner game of success. A fascinating topic that has confused and frustrated us for many years and one which I have pondered over for most of my 20 year career. So here’s my take on success-ability, or how to be more successful: Simple is usable and that’s why I believe it is important to break things down to easy, practical levels especially when it comes to how to be more successful. I have always worked that way because I want my clients to ‘pick up and run’ with my success techniques, otherwise, what’s the point? No one needs more information, there is already too much of that available on and offline…no, what we need more of and what really makes the difference are insights – so here are my xxx ways to get on and move ahead quickly.

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YOUR ENERGY LEARN HOW TO NOW BE FULLY ENERGISED WHEN IT COUNTS…AND IT COUNTS MOST OF THE TIME. When you’re feeling energised, you give off good vibes and people sense this. It is an attractive, appealing and contagious state to be in and most importantly, it is a vital addition to your overall image. And yes, image is everything. So be aware of your energy levels and do more to increase them because successful people are highly energetic people.

YOUR FOCUS DOING WHAT MATTERS THE MOST In every day you live there is ONE thing, above all others, that is THE most important thing for you to do.

What is it? Doing what counts every

day means you are making progress.

You ae moving toward your goal at a faster pace, building momentum and feeling a sense of real achievement.

Focusing on what matters and getting it done is probably one the most positive things you can do each day for your success-ability.

YOUR ACTIONS THEY ALWAYS SPEAK LOUDER Don’t get distracted or sidelined, ever! Your actions create your success MORE than your good intentions do.

So if you are bad a time management, get the help you need. If you are bad at saying no and therefore end up with too much on your plate, then get the help you need. What you say you are going to do and what you actual do, should be one of the same. Walk the talk with no excuses.

YOUR MAGNETISM THE ATTRACTOR FACTOR You know when someone walks in the room and they seem to attract everyone’s attention with no effort at all? They appear confident, assured, in control and exciting. That is magnetism and it can be learnt. First you have to not care what people think of you but without being arrogant. It is a subtle humility/ confidence thing that comes only when you believe in yourself and are happy in your own skin. I teach this all the time and believe me when I say it is super powerful. Begin by letting go of self-doubt, this is where you start. Then focus only on your strengths. Doing these two things alone will change things for you.

YOUR INSPIRATIONAL QUALITIES WHY PEOPLE SHOULD LOOK TO YOU I bet you never considered yourself to be a guru…someone that people went to for answers? Well, why not? Why shouldn’t you spread your wisdom and help others and become the main inspirational energy in your team? The truth is that we all have inspirational qualities and these can be certain tasks that we find very easy to do, or a natural skill that others struggle with.

In essence - whatever you are good at is your special quality so bring it out and let it shine! When you help others this way you are inspiring them to do the same, and before you know it you have a stronger, more focused and dynamic team.

BE ON A MISSION AND INSPIRE OTHERS TO FOLLOW YOU Most of the sales people I talk to or train want to know how to make a bigger impact at work. This mainly comes from inspiring others, and you can only work that magic when you have it ‘going on’. Your Focus, Your Action, Your Magnetism and Inspirational Qualities all come from being on a mission.

Your mission, needs to be two things; • A BIG picture goal • A plan to get there Your main goal has to be inspired and worthy of your efforts and your plan needs to be focused. Do the heavy lifting first with your vision by making it clear and solid, then simply pick out the main steps one by one.

COMMUNICATE LET EVERYONE KNOW EVERYTHING Force or ‘active power’ is you in action, on the go and on track to succeed.

You may have noticed when someone seems to be ‘on a mission’ – the force of their presence is quite something.

You notice it because it is like they are buzzing. This is because they are using their energy, seeing what is working and it makes them feel good.

They are on a roll, moving from good thing to next good thing and this has the magical ability of generating something quite rare and that’s MOMENTUM. RESOLVE CONTROLLED APPLIED POWER This is the ability to push and keep pushing until you get the result you want. It is like an insistence that you shall be successful no matter what.

It is about being on your Success Journey for the long run – the full experience of success instead of just the occasional taster.

Resolve gives you super-human strength. It can help you to be consistent, resourceful and creative – all elements that success needs. It can help you focus and build upon each success (or failure) along the way. Setbacks to this element are par for the course, in other words inconsequential.

Resolve stops us form being overly emotional because it hasn’t got the time, it just wants to get the job done. It fully understands the ‘why’ of your success AND the reward of achievement. This deep understanding is what fuels it. It gets all its power from knowing exactly what the success you desire will give you.

IF YOU LACK RESOLVE, YOU LACK AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHY YOU WANT SUCCESS, OF WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO YOU AND ULTIMATELY GIVES YOU. DECISIONS DAILY POWER MOVES Each day of your life from here on in can be enhanced by making powerful decisions. It is applying your power regularly that matters and will be the driving force of your success.

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AND

the winners are...

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Rowan Jameson Managing Partner, Telefonica O2

MY ROLE I have the privilege of working for O2 (Telefonica UK), as the Managing Partner of the Business Services Practice.

The Business Services Practice includes sectors such as construction, manufacturing and logistics.

I have been in this role for 1.5 years, previous to this role I was a sales manager and I was promoted within 12 months to my current position, due to my commitment and dedication to the customers within the sector.

Within my role as a Managing Partner, I take responsibility in delivering both short and long-term strategy into the Business Services Sector within the UK. For me the best way to serve the customers within the Business Services practice is to deliver against the following key performance indicators to ensure that we are serving the customers to the highest standard possible: •

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

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GROWTH

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PROFITABILIT Y

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INNOVATION

I am supported by a number of Client Directors, Client Managers Acquisition Managers and Sales Specialists, who have day to day responsibilities of our customers and prospects.

A key part of my role as a Managing Partner is to meet with key stakeholders and executives within our client base, to ensure we are exceeding expectations across all touch points.

I take responsibility to ensure that the team is supported in all the areas necessary to allow them to meet their customer requirements and meet our performance targets. As well as ensuring they have clear career paths and progression within their roles. As a result we are on of the highest performing sectors within the organisation.

THE WOMEN IN SALES AWARD NOMINATION

I was delighted and overwhelmed in finding out that I had been nominated for the Sales Director category in the Women in Sales Awards. The nomination in itself is rewarding as it was a nomination by my line manager, and secondly, to be recognised as a successful women in sales, is a real honour. My

personal belief is to work hard in order to achieve set targets and it’s a great feeling for this to be recognised especially in an external awards process.

Honestly, speaking I didn’t know what to expect from the process as for me it was a reward in itself to be nominated for such a prestigious award, but to then find out I had been shortlisted for the finals, I was ecstatic to say the least! This meant even more to me especially when I saw the other finalists in my category, which made me realise the calibre of individuals that I had been down selected with. I was proud and excited to share the news of getting to this stage with my family, colleagues and team.

JUDGEMENT DAY

I spent time preparing for the judging day, in working to distil down the key messages into short and succinct pitches. I gained feedback from my peers from all parts of the business from various levels, as I felt it was important to incorporate this in my presentation.

I practiced and practiced again to ensure that my messages landed well, and that I was getting across the relevant points from my role.

I also connected with the judges beforehand which was helpful in knowing who I would be meeting and presenting to on the day.

On the actual judging day, the 10th November, I woke up with mixed emotions but looking forward to the day which promised to be eventful and insightful. The venue was set in a wonderful location and the agenda was set in a constructive way, so no matter what the outcome, everyone would leave the day with some great insights and takeaways. At the same time, the nerves were creeping in at the thought of presenting to the panel. I managed to put the nerves at bay knowing it was going to be a great day no matter what the outcome and I would have the pleasure to spend it with a group of successful women from all different parts of business.

And I was right, it was great to meet the other finalists during the judging day, I had a great table with a mix of ladies from different categories. We heard from some very inspiring presenters about topics that will help with personal development, the panel discussions were very informative and a great chance to get involved and ask questions and have further discussions on our tables.

Although feeling slightly anxious going into the interview the nerves were soon point at ease as the judges created a relaxed atmosphere, as well getting asked questions which made me think beyond the typical scenarios I am faced with.

The whole process provides an opportunity for reflection on the great things that you have done as an individual, for me (and I know for lots of others) this is something that we don’t do often.

The awards offer you an opportunity to meet with other sales people from different organisations and gain a broader network as well as offering the opportunity to win your category, which as sales people we all like to do! You do need to commit time to preparing, but it is worth doing.

Reflecting on the day, it was a great pleasure and honour to be part of the whole process from being nominated to being shortlisted, to participating in the judging day.

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Best Woman Sales Director W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 47

Best Woman Sales Manager 4 8 W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6

Kayleigh Bottomley Associate Business Manager, Progressive

I BEGAN MY CAREER IN RECRUITMENT 7 YEARS AGO, LEAVING A CAREER IN FINANCIAL ADVICE TO START A BRAND NEW CAREER AS A TRAINEE RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT. My journey has been a challenging and exciting one, allowing me to work in different brands within the SThree group and working the public sector, technology and Oil and Gas market in Africa. I began my career in management 2.5 years ago leading and managing the Africa Oil and Gas team. This was my first taste of success in management and all was going extremely well until the Oil price decided to plummet. At this time there was another business in my brand that had been underperforming for nearly 2 years. I was asked to take on this team to see if I could create a turn around. I am proud and excited to say we are well on our way, 2016 has yielded 200% YOY growth and we now have some excellent relationships to build on and grow in 2017. I am a true believer in “Sales through Service” providing an excellent customer experience is, in my opinion, fundamental to success.

I believe that diversity allows us to be truly innovative and that is why I pride myself on having a diverse team, that work in an inclusive speak up environment that allows innovation and creativity to shine through.

When I found out I had been nominated for the Sales Manager award, I was genuinely really proud. It’s been a tough year for recruitment businesses, especially one that’s trying to achieve a turn around, so to have been recognised for the hard work and strategic decisions I had made was incredible. I found the application process really rewarding, it was a really good chance to reflect on mine and the teams’ strengths and achievements this year. Unfortunately there had been a communication issue, so I actually filled in my application on the plane on the way to Vegas for my 30th! One way to spend a 9 hour plane journey!

When I found out I’d made it to the finals, I was absolutely over the moon and thought it must be how contestants on the X Factor feel when they get to the live shows. When they handed me the microphone to do my 60 second showcase on, “Why should you win?” I think I would have preferred to have been on the X Factor stage. It was quite scary, but I enjoyed the challenge and the day was an incredible experience. There was an expert panel of speakers throughout the day, discussing things like digital disruption and effective mentoring, which were incredible and gave me a lot of food for thought walking away. The best part of the experience was meeting all of the incredible finalists, who all had their own story, challenges, success and personalities. These women were an inspiration and I’m so glad I got to be there with them. Win or lose an excellent experience and an achievement I’m very proud of.

My advice to any company out there is to use these awards to recognise and reward their top performing female talent.

Not only will it be a huge motivational boost to the nominee, it will inspire other females in the business, attract female talent to your organisation and it will challenge already high achievers to dig even deeper within themselves.

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Best Woman in Professional Services Sales 5 0 W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6

Tanya Lucas Consultant, Transform People International

THE BEST SALES PEOPLE IN THE WORLD DON’T JUST HIT THEIR NUMBER, THEY BUILD LONG TERM PERFORMANCE AND SUSTAINABILITY FOR THEIR ORGANISATIONS. I am fortunate enough to be a Partner at an organisation that believes in me, and I believe in them. At Transform People International we work with organisations to deliver bottom line results and culture change through people by transforming attitudes, mind-sets, beliefs, behaviours and skills. I am sure you have now realised a common theme; I am interested in organisations, performance and their people! I am a firm believer in reciprocity; by giving value, giving time and giving leadership you will in turn be rewarded. In my day- to- day work, I am more than just a successful sales woman; I am an intrapreneaur, a business psychologist, a psychometrician, a people leader. I have worked hard to create a personal brand and to become a trusted adviser to my clients, my peers and my team. I look to share value, insight, vision and make a difference to people’s careers and their success.

When I found out I had been nominated by my organisation, I was delighted and extremely honoured. Above all, I noted the belief my organisation had in me. I meet many talented women every day in my role and I had been shortlisted as a finalist among Europe’s top female talent; what an achievement in

itself! I took the time to reflect and recognise the journey I had been on in 2016; and what a great one it has been! For me, one of my strongest lessons was ‘we have within us all the resources we need’ and I made my success happen.

When I received the judging day guidelines, I was relieved to see that they really wanted to see ‘me’ as ‘me’. There were no strict guidelines, but this was an opportunity to share success, tell my story and be authentic. I started by doing what I do for any important meeting; research! Who would be the industry leaders I would present to? What questions may they have for me? What did I want them to know about me? And what did I want to know about them? I also tried to put myself in their shoes, ‘If I were a CEO of a professional services sales team, what would I like to see from my people?’

The judging day arrived and it was held at a beautiful country park just outside Reading; Wokefield Park. This was an opportunity to meet many talented, inspirational women and I was extremely excited. The day consisted of great insight from thought leaders on emotional intelligence, mentoring and sales technology to name a few. There were many opportunities to network and hear about common challenges in sales across industries and how others address these. Taking part in the panel presentation and discussion was a fantastic opportunity; in particular, I gained great insight and advice on how I could address a future ambition I have to contribute to the professionalising of sales. We also delivered a one minute pitch; the adrenaline kicked in and it was my opportunity to share my passion for sales and why I do, what I do.

I would highly recommend organisations to support their women in sales and nominate your them for the Women In Sales Awards. Not only is it a great experience, it is an opportunity to network with other successful women and the motivation and inspiration is invaluable. It a great way to show recognition and improve confidence. The process is not only one of reflection but it also teaches you so much about your own behaviour, attitude, mind-set and belief.

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Rupinder Bahra Business Development Manager, Metlife

I AM ONE OF METLIFE’S BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS AND HAVE BEEN WORKING AT METLIFE FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS AND IN FINANCIAL SALES FOR THE LAST 20. I AM PROUD OF THE FACT THAT IN EVERY ONE OF THESE YEARS IN SALES I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DELIVER ABOVETARGET SALES GROWTH. I am also a devoted wife and mother to two very active boys aged 7 and 4, so my days are certainly busy. I have always been driven to succeed and always strive to be the best I can for both my employers, clients and my family.

In 2015, I was invited to join my MetLife colleagues at the WIS Awards being held at The Savoy, London.

Now, although I knew what the WIS Awards were and how prestigious they were, I didn’t realise just how lifechanging the experience of attending the awards would be. I was in awe of all the great women in the room, from the candidates being recognized for their achievements to the wonderful and inspirational speakers. To top it all off, a couple of MetLife colleagues actually won awards that evening. I left that room on cloud nine, totally inspired and with one goal in mind…….to be nominated for an award in 2016!

So after investing a significant amount of time and energy to try and be “even more successful”, I was extremely happy, grateful and honored to find out that I had achieved my goal to be nominated for a WIS award. Knowing the high-caliber of women that are considered for these awards every year, I couldn’t quite believe it when I was then shortlisted to the final 6 for the whole of Europe.

Preparing for the judging day was one of the most emotionally taxing things I have ever done. Having made the final 6, the realization set in that there was now a chance of actually winning an award. My family and friends seemed convinced I would win, so the fear of letting everyone down by not winning certainly made the process a lot more difficult. But I wanted to make sure that I tried my best and if my best wasn’t good enough, then it was not meant to be. So I immediately set about planning for the day. I read (and re-read about 100 times) the brief for the day and also spoke to my colleagues that went through the process the previous year. I then thought about how I would present the information required in a unique way that would have my personal stamp on it, and worked on it with every spare moment I had.

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The judging day itself was amazing but also a day of mixed emotions: excitement and joy coupled with nervousness and worry. But the judges and other candidates were amazing at making everyone feel at ease and the day as a whole was great. I got to meet some fantastically talented people and the opportunity to network with them was truly inspiring.

Going forward I would love to not only help others within MetLife, but also work towards helping the next generation of talented women in sales.

Best Woman in Field Sales W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 5 3

Angela Moffitt Account Manager, Vocalink

AT THE AGE OF 17, MY FIRST JOB WAS AS A JUNIOR CLERK IN A BANK BRANCH IN THE NORTH EAST OF ENGLAND. THEN ONE DAY, AS A SHY TEENAGER, I FOUND MYSELF ASKING THE MANAGER IF THERE WERE ANY OPPORTUNITIES IN LONDON. The very next day I was told there was a job in the Bank’s Head Office, and that the job was mine if I was prepared to move to London. I relocated within a month! It was at this point that I realised my career progression was completely in my own hands. Making this step and pushing myself out of my comfort zones and seeking opportunities and new challenges was the best thing I ever did.

After becoming a people leader, by request, for the bulk of my career, and specialising in Merchant Acquiring/ cards acceptance for over 25 years, I decided to try something new…..

VocaLink is a fantastic growing company to work for, the culture is great and the people are also great.

It was a delight to learn that I had been nominated for a Women in Sales Award. It’s most rewarding to know that I’m valued by my employer in this way. And especially since I have only worked for VocaLink for just over a year.

Then, when I learned I had been short listed as a finalist, I was really surprised.

Judgement day took place in a great setting at Wokefield Park which was very well organised, and it was an informative and enjoyable day. The speakers and the judges were all super people, and I have no idea how they were able to give their valuable time to help make the event such a success. Very dedicated to the cause and much appreciated.

The thoughts taken away from judgement day were mostly of positivity and that I could have done so much better (but we were told this is what us Women naturally think!); also, what a great bunch of people to meet and connect with.

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Wishing everyone a great end to 2016, and being refreshed and re-set for an exciting 2017.

Best Woman in Financial Sales W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 5 5

Best Woman in Insurance Sales & Most Distinguished Sales Woman of 2016

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Cecilia Furner Business Development Manager, Metlife

I WAS THRILLED TO HEAR THAT I WAS NOMINATED AS A FINALIST. BEING NOMINATED BY METLIFE WAS A GREAT HONOUR AND SUCCESS IN ITSELF – AND IT HAS BEEN A WONDERFUL MOTIVATION TO ACHIEVE EVEN MORE IN MY CAREER. I HAVE SET MYSELF SOME VERY HIGH GOALS AND CANNOT WAIT TO SEE WHAT THE FUTURE WILL BRING! Financial Services and Insurance have always been a very male dominated industry, and it is so important to show that females can succeed and thrive in this environment.

We definitely need more women to come to the fore.

Being nominated will inspire other ladies in my Industry to break the glass ceiling we set ourselves and allow ourselves to aspire to more.

realising our common goals and struggles and sharing our success. I will be in touch with some of the ladies for the rest of my career and have certainly made some good friends! I have taken so much away from the break-out sessions – maybe most of all the importance of a good mentor (or 2!) in your career and I will certainly follow the advice and guidance.

The judging day was such an amazing experience, certainly more than I expected and much more than only being “judged “. I have met some very inspiring ladies from all over Europe. It was a day of sharing experiences,

I will definitely encourage companies to nominate successful and talented women for the WISA. It inspires individuals to create even more success and not only that, to go back to their work place and lead by example.

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This whole experience has made me excited and proud to be a woman in Sales, to set an example to my peers (male and female!) and to inspire other females in the industry – and most of all to my 2 beautiful daughters…to lead by example and see them grow into confident women who can achieve whatever they set their minds to!

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Best Woman in Technology Sales 5 8 W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6

Claire Philliskirk Digital Sales Channel Manager, O2

MY NAME IS CLAIRE PHILLISKIRK, I AM A DIGITAL BUSINESS CONSULTANT AT O2 / TELEFONICA. I AM LUCKY TO HAVE ENJOYED A VARIED CAREER IN SALES, WITH EXPERIENCE IN MANY INDUSTRIES FROM LEGAL, CONSTRUCTION AND NOW TELECOMS.

The judging day unbelievable. I left there feeling inspired and motivated. The panel discussions were fantastic and made me grateful to be surrounded my some of the most distinguished sales people in business. Not just the speakers and judges, but my fellow finalists.

Being a part of the Woman in Sales Awards has been a pivotal moment in my career. It has given me the confidence to go on and help other women in business achieve their goals. The opportunities it has opened up for me already, just being nominated, has been overwhelming.

My advice to other women and businesses considering taking part in 2017 – as I say to anyone considering a career in sales, it's an absolute no brainer!

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I was surprised and delighted at my nomination for the Women in Sales Awards. When I got the phone call from Head of Business Sales, I remember feeling that being nominated for doing something you are fiercely passionate about has got to be the ultimate recognition.

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In the past 18 months at O2, I have never missed a target and secured, as quoted by one of O2's Board Members and Sales Director 'the most significant deal ever seen in Mid-Market'.

In preparing for the judging day, my main aim was to ensure that the real 'Me' shone through in my presentation. I truly believe that this is the key to my success. My passion for sales stems right back to grass roots and the values I have been brought up with, which I hold true to this day in my career. I was always told as a child that we work hard, we help others and we don't forget who we are!

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With a keen interest in technology and innovative ways of selling, the role at O2 is a perfect fit for me. It allows me to work consultatively and collaborate with some fantastic businesses, to support them along their digital journey.

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Best Woman in Software Sales 6 0 W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6

Laura Moniz De Aragao

Business Development Director EMEA, Thomsons Online Benefits

EIGHT YEARS AGO, I TOOK MY FINAL BOW ON THE WEST END STAGE AS A CAST MEMBER IN THE MUSICAL WEST SIDE STORY.

My advice for the 2017 finalists is to embrace and most importantly enjoy the experience. The ability to surround yourself with other successful women, and the motivation that will bring you is invaluable. For organisations considering the awards, put your leading ladies forward, because like me, the confidence and drive it provides can only help the organisations that we sell for. Whilst currently women make up a small percentage of sales teams – that small percentage can unlock a lot of value for the companies that employ us. Let’s continually raise awareness of the value saleswomen can bring and make these awards bigger and bigger each year.

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I treated the entire process like I would a client sale. Firstly, I applied sales rigour to de-risk the opportunity, gaining as

The finalists’ day was an incredible experience and instantly you could sense the pride, passion and comradery. Being in a room with Europe’s most talented sales women, networking, participating in topical panel discussions and hearing how cross-industry we are all facing similar challenges inspired me to continually drive the development of up and coming female sales talent in my own organisation. Whilst, part of the day was the formal judging process, throughout there really was a sense of celebrating success.

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When my manager told me I had been nominated for the Women in Sales Awards, I was of course incredibly grateful and proud for the recognition. However, just like that moment eight years ago on stage, I was extremely nervous and unsure how I would be able to complete against some of Europe’s top sales women. Despite the nerves I looked at what an amazing experience this would be and focussed on the job in hand, in this instance how to wow the judges in order to win!

much knowledge and understanding as I could on all aspects of the awards including past winners, the judges and the scoring criteria. Secondly, I strengthened my application with client and key stakeholder testimonials. Lastly, once I found out I had been shortlisted I focussed on how I could showcase my story, my passion and my sales strengths to the judges in the five-minute presentation to truly come across as ‘me’ rather than someone who had swallowed a lot of sales books!

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As the curtain closed, I wondered whether my decision to move from the stage to sales was a crazy one, doubting myself hugely if I would ever succeed. On reflection, whilst stage school was not the most conventional route to enter a software sales career, I could not have wished for a better training ground to succeed. Through all the shows, auditions, costumes and injuries, my experiences on and off stage have taught me so many things about myself and how to apply these to drive personal and business success. Whether it is the resilience to handle the no’s, continual perfection of my sales craft or the passion to drive an emotional connection with my clients, I believe like performing on the stage, performing in sales is all about the application of your technique, blended with your art.

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Best Woman in Travel & Leisure Sales 6 2 W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6

Chloe Holloway Account Manager, Virgin

MY JOURNEY INTO SALES BEGAN NINE YEARS AGO WHEN I JOINED VIRGIN MEDIA BUSINESS. I STARTED OUT AS THE CORPORATE SALES TEAM ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT. I found that I had a real passion for the telecommunications industry and enjoyed learning about technology and understanding how innovative solutions could transform organisations and also their customer experience.

I soon became frustrated with sitting behind a desk processing orders and filing paper work and began to look for other opportunities to learn and develop myself. I was inspired by the successful sales colleagues around me and I wanted to have a go at selling and getting closer to the customers. I quickly moved through Internal and Junior Sales roles into a Field Account Manager position. In April of this year I moved to the Strategic Account Team. I am responsible for some of the largest and strategically important accounts in our organisation – A number of these accounts are in the Travel and Leisure sector.

I am grateful to have been supported on my career journey by some great leaders and mentors. They have really inspired me to push myself to step outside of my comfort zone and achieve things I would have never thought possible when I joined. I certainly would not have imagined being a nominee for a WISA award. This is my second year of being a finalist and it really is an honour. Being nominated is an amazing feeling and on both occasions has given me a huge boost of confidence and pride. It

was great to see that my organisation had nominated three of my colleagues who are also finalists this year.

Having experience of WISA I knew that I was going to be part of a fabulous experience and that I would meet many inspirational women in sales and hear from some insightful speakers. I got together with my fellow finalist and we supported each other and I shared my experience from last year.

I set to work gaining ideas for my presentation, as with most others I have spoken to during this experience, talking about oneself does not feel natural. I spoke to my mentors and coaches about my ideas on my presentation and sought feedback around their interactions with me on a professional and personal level. This proved very insightful and I actually learnt a lot about myself in the process.

Like last year, I felt incredibly nervous in the final hours and minutes in the lead up to the judge’s panel. The judges were friendly and challenging. I soon settled into my presentation, the next twenty minutes went by in a flash.

The panel discussions were very thought provoking and it was great for everyone to be involved and share ideas and experiences. It is not often I get the opportunity to spend time with like-minded people from very different industries.

I particularly enjoyed the session on ‘Digital Disruption’ I am absolutely honoured to have been a part of this process and to have been presented with this award. The additional confidence the award has given me will help fuel my ambition to become an Account Director and one day move into a Leadership role. I want my journey, experience and success to inspire other females inside and outside my organisation.

I would highly recommend organisations getting involved in the WISA scheme in 2017. It is hugely important that women in sales get the recognition they deserve, especially in sectors such as Telecommunications where traditionally it has been male dominated.

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Laura McKinlay Digital Sales Advisor, O2

SO HOW DID I FIND MYSELF AT THE WOMEN IN SALES AWARDS 2016….

I started working for O2 in May 2015 and was keen to make an impression and prove I was capable of succeeding.

I was aligned with some great people which gave me the best possible start, I used that support along with all my own skills and knowledge to become one of the top sellers within O2 Business. It was when members of the Senior Leadership team knew who I was and some of the work I’d done within only a few months that I realised I was on my way to where I wanted to be.

I was in a taxi in London on my way to a customer meeting when I got the call to say I had been nominated for a Women in Sales Award. I can remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when Mark Davis, Head of Mid-Market Business announced himself on the phone. What have I done I was thinking? Racking my brain to think what he could possibly want, whilst making small talk about the day so far. “Just to let you know, you’ve been nominated for a Women in Sales Award” he said. I think I just stuttered for a while and asked really?? I was so pleased to have been recognised within the business and was straight on the phone to tell anyone who would listen.

The hard work then starts of course and it took a long time to put my application together. Talking about my own achievements and how successful I have been is not something that comes naturally to me, so I spoke to people I had worked with to help me out. Getting my application complete was a relief but then it’s the wait to find out if I had made it through to the finals. Getting that call was such a great feeling, not only because it means that WISA saw something in my application and what this can do for my

career, but who doesn’t want to attend a black tie/ball gown awards ceremony?

Time to get prepared for the judging day. I had a five minute presentation to prepare for, a fifteen minute interview and a one minute pitch to get across my success, knowledge and hopefully likeability which is very important in sales. I was lucky in that I know a couple of finalists from previous years of WISA, so I had the opportunity to speak with them to understand what to expect. I prepared and practised my presentation and took the time to think about my one minute pitch, I then run it past a couple of my colleagues to ensure I was confident on the day.

When the judging day came round on the 10th November, it was a little nerve racking but exciting as well. We all met at the hotel for breakfast at 8 o clock in the morning, introduced ourselves to other finalists and settled into the day. I was very lucky and met some great people on my table, women of different levels of experience and in different industries. I was also lucky enough to be sat with one of the speakers from the day. We had some great conversations about our sales experiences and also a great laugh along the way. Whilst waiting for our turn to go into the judging room, we had the privilege of listening to a panel of experts talking about their sales experiences, industry trends, skills to retain new information and more.

To anyone going through this process next year I’d say take the opportunity and use it to develop yourself, grow in confidence and use it as a platform to catapult you in whichever direction you choose is right for you. Speak to as many people as you can while you’re at the event and use your networking skills to get the most from it. Mostly I’d say just enjoy it and be proud of what you’ve achieved.

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Best Woman in Telephone Sales W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 6 5

Abigail Davis Account Development Manager, Adobe

COMING FROM A FAMILY WHO HAVE A BACKGROUND IN SALES, I WAS PREPARED THAT THIS ENVIRONMENT WAS LIKELY TO BE HEAVILY MALE DOMINATED. Growing up I had listened to stories from my grandmother of selling cars and being the only woman in the sales room and the challenges that came along with that. I can honestly say that my experience at Adobe has been far from the stories. I have had the pleasure of being managed and mentored by strong and confident women who are fantastic at what they do. I have not only been able to grow and learn, but also see the power that comes from being a woman in sales.

I was both incredibly honoured and surprised when I found out that I was nominated for the WISA. To be selected above so many talented and enthusiastic women at Adobe was truly an outstanding achievement that I could have only imagined back when I started at Adobe just over a year ago.

When the short list was announced, I was both very excited and nervous. I began building my presentation, which went through multiple adjustments before it made its final debut at the judging day. From the last year I have learnt that preparation is key. It was important that I researched, covered the key topic areas and rehearsed until I felt confident that I was putting my best foot forward.

The judging day was located at Wokefield Park, a beautiful venue in Reading. I found the opportunity to meet other women in sales incredibly inspiring and thoroughly enjoyed the key speakers. I specifically enjoyed the session around mentoring as this has helped me to develop my mentoring network, including gaining Caroline Porteous, a previous winner of the WISA, as a mentor.

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My advice for anyone who is thinking about nominating a woman in their team would be to just go for it!

Celebrating diversity, especially in sales, is imperative to a successful workforce. I think it’s important to not be afraid to challenge the status quo, especially in the world today where the sky is the limit.

Best Woman Sales Newcomer W O M E N I N S A L E S AWA R D S / E U R O P E - D EC E M B E R 2 0 1 6 6 7

Nikki Richards Key Account Manager, Huxley

MY CAREER IN SALES STARTED JUST OVER 9 YEARS AGO AS A TRAINEE RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT AT HUXLEY, STHREE’S BANKING BRAND. I’VE PROGRESSED OVER THE YEARS INTO MORE AND MORE SENIOR POSITIONS AND NOW WORK AS KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER FOR THE CITY. This means I have responsibility for many of our larger accounts across multiple brands – it’s fast-paced, complex and no day is the same – just how I like it!

2016 has been a challenging year. The banking & finance market was hugely affected by Brexit and in turn this impacted the recruitment industry. Having gone through a recession before (when Lehman Brothers crashed), I prepared myself accordingly! Stay strong, focused, determined to succeed and always follow best practice. This was the advice I passed on to the colleagues I’m mentoring at the moment and whilst it’s been a challenge, they’ve all had a successful year! I’m very honoured to now be an official member of our Mentoring Programme – this was one of my biggest achievements of 2016!

In addition to mentoring colleagues, I’ve also been mentoring schoolchildren & women from underprivileged backgrounds.

This has really helped me develop as a manager and a mentor; they’ve given me the opportunity to look at things from a different perspective. I’m really grateful for the experiences they’ve given me this year.

The culmination was the nomination for Best Female Sales Mentor for the WISA. It was at this moment that I felt like I’d become a true role model in SThree; this was a proud moment for me.

To find out I was a finalist was amazing! I really wasn’t expecting it, and got quite emotional. I felt really humbled to have been chosen from so many; this was a huge personal achievement for me. Reality really kicked in when I realised what was next…

Judging Day! I had to present to a room full of judges…

Preparation began; I wanted perfection. I spent a great deal of time drawing my experiences together to make sure I didn’t miss anything out! My manager helped me come up with a unique way to present my journey to the judges and the day crept up fast, as did my nerves.

What relieved me was meeting my fellow finalists on the day. Everyone in my group was so supportive which created a lovely atmosphere. I was able to practice my presentation a few times with them before the real thing; their lovely comments and reassurance put me at ease. We all cheered each other on in the judging room and said how excited we were to be cheering each other even more at the award ceremony.

I was so impressed with the speakers we heard from throughout the day. The Importance of Mentoring was obviously my hot topic of the day, so am thrilled to say that I’m meeting one of the panellists, Maria Antoniou, for a session on the challenges of mentoring… I’m always looking to improve my mentoring styles so I’m really grateful for her time! Without the WISA, I would never have met her, or indeed, Miriam Meijers. Miriam spent some time with me after the judging panel and gave me excellent advice on potential study, accreditations and other mentoring communities I can join. Thank you, both!

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The WISA experience has been a very positive one for me.

It pushed me outside of my comfort zone, challenged me, gave me an exceptional networking opportunity and made me believe in myself. I’d encourage any sales business to nominate their staff for these awards – it will be a unique and rewarding experience for the individual and no doubt, the company too.

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Congratulations to the next generation of WOMEN SALES LEADERS.

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Sales Mistakes to Avoid in 2017

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What considerations do your B2B sales staff need to make for 2017? We all know that the selling environment is shifting. In fact, sales is on the cusp of an inbound revolution, following the footsteps of the inbound mindset that is transforming marketing.

Are you ready to evolve and adapt your sales strategy to keep up?

HOW SALES IN 2017 SHOULD WORK The door-to-door salespeople of decades past wouldn’t recognise selling today - and that’s a good thing. As power shifts from the seller to the buyer, salespeople are incentivised to be helpful instead of pushy. Just like inbound marketing obliterated pushy outbound marketing, inbound sales will transform sellers from aggressive closers into helpful advocates. - State of Inbound 2016

WHAT ARE YOUR COMPANY'S TOP SALES PRIORITIES FOR THE NEXT YEAR? Despite the fact that Sales in undergoing a radical transformation right now similar to the inbound revolution that swept over Marketing a decade ago - the function's primary directive is still the same: Sell more, better, faster. Seventy percent of respondents are dead set on closing more deals this year

70%

Closing more deals Improving the efficiency of the sales funnel

47%

Reducing the length of the sales cycle

31% 28%

Social selling

27%

Training the sales team Improving existing sales technologies

If you’re still selling in the same way that you were a decade ago - stop!

25%

Investing in sales enablement

Today, your tactics need to switch from ‘pushy’, to ‘helpful’ selling to match how people want to buy. Outbound legacy tactics are becoming historical relics.

16% 13%

Investing in CRM Other

3%

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INBOUND SALES IS THE WAY FORWARD

Head of Inbound Sales Strategic Internet Consulting Ltd www.strategic-ic.co.uk @FesAskari_SIC

This ‘always be helping’ mindset is mirrored in the data reported in 2016’s HubSpot State of Inbound.

Surveying 4500+ marketing and sales professionals, the report detailed multiple shifts in how the inbound sales approach is changing the way we sell: •

While 34% of sales reps say closing deals is harder than it was 2-3 years ago, it is 2016’s number one sales priority for 70% of organisations

•

Social selling has increased in importance by 6% making it a

priority sales action for 28% of organisations •

27% of respondents stated that

•

16% of organisations plan to invest in Sales Enablement as a priority

‘Training the sales team’ is a priority for the coming year

This shows that sales teams are starting to shift their strategies into the modern age by adopting the inbound sales methodology; with sales training, sales enablement and sales training becoming priorities.

To stay relevant, your sales team needs to do the same, and avoid the below mistakes.

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3.

FAILING TO ALIGN MARKETING AND SALES

Do you have an SLA (Service Level Agreement) in place between your sales and marketing departments?

SLAs work to keep your organisation clear on exactly what constitutes a quality lead, and detail which side are responsible for what actions. For example with an SLA, marketing knows exactly how qualified the leads they hand to sales should be, streamlining your processes.

“Sales teams growing more than 50% were more likely than any other group to identify LinkedIn as a valuable sales connection channel.”

- H U B S P O T S TAT E OF INBOUND 2016

Buyer education is integral to an effective model in 2017: “Sales staff state that prospecting becomes increasingly harder if a lead is poorly educated on the sales topic. 36% of sales staff say prospecting is difficult when a lead is ‘not at all knowledgeable’ vs. ‘very knowledgeable’ (26%)” - State of Inbound 2016 ‘Educate your buyer’ is clearly the message to take away here. But to achieve that, your sales team must be ready to align with your marketing team. Increasingly, it’s marketing’s responsibility to ensure prospects are better educated and qualified before speaking with sales. That’s very much a two-way relationship, so be prepared to co-ordinate your departments for effective prospecting in 2017.

“Align your prospecting efforts with how buyers want to purchase by tuning into the signals that indicate interest, and working with Marketing to increase the flow of inbound leads” - State of Inbound 2016

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“At the end of the day, it comes down to communication. There’s room for improvement on marketing-sourced leads, but marketing won’t know what needs to be fixed unless there’s a feedback mechanism built into the marketing/sales relationship.”

- HubSpot State of Inbound 2016 Of company's who say their marketing strategy is effective, how aligned is their States and Marketing relationship?

82% 66% 36% 20%

Misaligned

With social selling increasing reported as a sales priority (up from 22% in 2015, to 28% in 2016), don’t make the mistake of ignoring social. Instead, mark social selling as an everyday action for your team to build quality relationships with your prospects.

For many sales reps, prospecting is still hard, and it won’t get easier unless you start to rethink your prospecting processes.

Rarely aligned

If your team isn’t social selling, why not? According to IBM, 55% of buyers do all their research using social networks. Successful sales teams in 2017 will be those who can position themselves as helpful advisors on social; which is something that State of Inbound respondents know - 42% already communicate via LinkedIn and Twitter for business purposes.

33% of State of Inbound respondents named ‘prospecting’ as the most difficult stage of the sales process, though this has reduced from 43% in 2015’s report.

In 2017, sales and marketing coordination is key to transparent, successful working; alignment allows sales teams to benefit from marketing’s lead data, and the whole organisation gains clarity on what defines a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) or Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).

Generally aligned

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NOT INVESTING IN SOCIAL SELLING

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FAILING TO OVERHAUL THE PROSPECTING PROCESS

Tightly aligned (Sales and Marketing SLA)

7 SALES MISTAKES TO AVOID IN 2017:

82% of organisations with a tightly aligned Sales and Marketing SLA (Service Level Agreement) believe their marketing to be effective.

"Our marketing strategy is effective."

4.

CONTINUING TO RELY ON COLD CALLING

Cold calling, an outbound sales tactic, only has a 2.5% success rate - Keller Research Center How many buyers do you know who happily answer the phone to cold calls, and love discussing products out of the blue? Not many?

That’s because the buying process has changed. As buyers alter their expectations of how they like to engage, interruptive tactics like cold calling just aren’t as effective something those following traditional selling models likely know.

In 2017, don’t make the mistake of sticking with traditional and ineffective tactics. To advance, reduce reliance on old strategies and plan with modern buyers in mind.

The inbound sales methodology transforms selling to match how modern buyers purchase. It prioritises the buyer’s needs first not your timeline. So listen to your buyers, help them address their pain - and stop interrupting them.

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FAILING TO INVEST IN SALES TRAINING

Of course, no process overhaul is ever complete without training. If you’re committed to change and success in 2017, you need to achieve buy-in from your entire staff - and that means inbound sales training.

To adopt inbound, your sales processes will need to undergo a substantial transformation, and your sales staff must be prepared to adapt their selling mindset. But that’s exactly why inbound works - don’t leave it too late to educate your team.

27% of respondents stated that ‘Training the sales team’ is a priority for the coming year.

- State of Inbound 2016

ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN 2017:

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NOT EXPLORING NEW AVENUES OF COMMUNICATION

How are you contacting your leads? Don’t make the mistake of ignoring channel diversity. In 2017 it’s time to add to phone and email; with social channels, video conferencing, messenger apps and more.

The message here is to heed shifts in buyer communication preference.

Determine how your prospects want to communicate, and meet them in that environment.

How do you prefer to communicate for business purposes?

For business communications, respondents prefer email, face-to-face, and phone.

A good portion of our respondents like using social media to communicate (42%), and 29% like using messaging apps like WhatsApp or WeChat.

55%

Email

45%

Face-to-face

43%

Phone

38% 37% 24%

Social Media Video conferencing Messenger apps Other

19%

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CONTINUING TO USE A SILOED CRM

Transparent, successful and aligned strategies do not stem from silos.

If your CRM lacks the ability to integrate with your marketing automation platform and tech stack, now is the time to review it.

Why? Because adopting a CRM that integrates with other critical systems is the first step toward true marketing/sales alignment and transparency on exact progress with prospects.

The CRM presents significant challenges of all varieties for sales professionals.

When asked ‘What is your biggest challenge in using your CRM’, a ‘ lack of integration with other tools’ was the tied greatest response (at 17%), alongside ‘manual data entry’ - HubSpot State of Inbound.

What is your biggest challege using CRM?

17% 17% 16% 14% 12%

Manual data entry Lack of integration with tools My sales team doesn't use it Don't know / not applicable Difficult to track my sales funnel

8% 7%

Invalid or incorrect data It's too complicated to use Managers don't use it Other

5% 5%

Whether you’re already considering inbound sales, or are hearing about it for the first time here, there’s no denying it’s set to be the next big change in B2B sales. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring inbound if you want to see success in 2017.

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How the Digital Age is Transforming the Sales Process

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t may be hard to imagine now, but there was a time when products were sold in a physical sense and salespeople were seen as the go-to experts before any sale took place. Take CDs for example: once neatly packaged albums and singles were organised by name and genre, before being displayed in shop racks for consumers to browse and buy. Then online stores like Amazon exploded and people stopped going to record stores.

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Co-founder and director of the Digital Marketing Institute. the certification standard in digital marketing education, training more graduates to a single standard than any other certification body.

Industry-validated, the Digital Marketing Institute’s training is taught full time, part time and online in over 80 countries by the Digital Marketing Institute and its network of licensed education partners, 23 of which are UK-based.

The point is that consumer habits change - and often shift with advancements in technology. Over the past few years, social selling has gained the attention of sales professionals looking to succeed in the altered customer purchasing landscape.

With a predicted 2.55 billion social media network users globally by 2018 and consumers being five times more reliant on digital content than they were in the early 2,000’s, it is clear that the digital space is here to stay.

An organisation looking to drive sales has a raft of digital technologies to choose from to improve the selling power of a business. But, just applying and using these technologies isn’t enough. There needs to be a digital selling strategy in place that guides the organisation as a whole and ensures the digital assets are aligned with other activities that drive sales. By coupling a digital strategy with social selling, organisations can increase brand awareness and drive revenue.

Despite its success in boosting the selling process, research by the Sales Management Association found that

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two-thirds of companies do not have any sort of social media strategy for their sales teams. As one of the most powerful and effective branches of digital sales, social selling seems to be undervalued and underutilised by organisations to their detriment. To rectify this underestimation, let’s go back to the start.

WHAT IS SOCIAL SELLING? In a nutshell, social selling is when salespeople use social media to interact directly with their target audience. Successful social sellers can be regarded as thought leaders by prospective customers as they provide value through industry insights, sharing expertise and offering solutions to common consumer questions through creating or sharing insightful content. Ultimately the goal of this tactic is to build trust with a customer until they are ready to invest in a service or product.

The contemporary idea of social selling dates back to around 2005 when the University of British Columbia carried out a study and discovered that where there are incidental similarities between

a buyer and seller, it is more likely a purchase would take place. Digital marketing pioneer Nigel Edelshain, founder of the phrase Sales 2.0 put this science into practice by using the principles of social selling to focus his techniques on winning over prospects by appearing before them, rather than trying to close a sale once in the room, through a pitch or in a meeting.

In today's connected digital world, people have more of a voice than ever - and customers can find out pretty much anything they want about a product or service from each other, with a few clicks of a mouse.

Recent research by Price Waterhouse Cooper found that 78% of consumers were influenced by social media in some way when purchasing, while nearly half said that reviews, comments and feedback on social media influenced their buying behavior. Of course, this trust and reliance on digital networks make it easy to discover negative information about a business on the web; but, there is also enormous potential to influence a consumer's buying decision in a positive way through social selling.

WHY IS SOCIAL SELLING SO IMPORTANT? Today's consumers are savvy and are less susceptible to traditional sales techniques. With 90% of decision makers never answering a cold call it's no longer good enough to adopt a one size fits all mentality to your organisation’s online sales plan. It's essential to tailor your sales team’s efforts to the individual. Essentially, a big part of social selling is thinking about things from the customer's perspective and approaching them with a warm intro, rather than a cold, impersonal pitch - and it's an essential and valuable skill.

When it comes to selling, the most important thing that the internet excels at is developing relationships.

Alongside relationship building, it offers the opportunity to establish trust with existing and potential customers and ultimately drive sales.

The success of the tactic has been reported by influencers such as Forbes, with 78% of salespeople that use social platforms outperforming their non-social media using peers and 23% exceeding their quotas.

“The internet is the most disruptive force I've seen in my lifetime.

Sales functions are undergoing a massive transformation out of sheer necessity.

The reason they’re transforming is in direct response to the fact that the buyer is transforming” - J I L L R O W L E Y, S O C I A L S E L L I N G E VA N G E L I S T

To compete in the digital landscape, IBM decided to adjust their selling strategy to meet the needs of today's consumer. By working with the Digital Marketing Institute, IBM evolved the way in which they sold their IT services to consumers through a customised digital selling program that trained the company's insider sales team to reach potential clients using the power of social networks.

The results were incredible. Globally, 80% of sellers revealed that the bespoke Certificate in Professional Digital Selling will or has increased their selling abilities, while 84% felt the program will help them perform better in their job. Due to the success of the program, IBM intends to have their entire global workforce trained in the social selling program by the end of 2016.

Another company that has reaped the rewards through social selling is LogMyCalls. This savvy call tracking company has often been acclaimed for their fresh content marketing strategies, which include case studies, webinars, and other well-placed digital techniques. However, when the company decided to take a social selling standpoint and launched their

'150 Blog Posts in 50 Days' campaign, they saw a huge increase in leads in just 90 days. In fact, these smaller, more focused socially friendly pieces of content yielded LogMyCalls a colossal 400% increase.

The rise of social apps available to consumers seems set to grow with more niche social networks such as Cucumbertown (for cooks and chefs) and Doximity (for doctors) emerging and as a result organisations will focus their training efforts to help maximise their ROI in the social sales sector.

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL SELLING While social selling has gained momentum amongst sales professionals, digital selling is still in its infancy and offers huge opportunities for organisations wanting to excel online. With social selling focused on social assets, digital selling involves leveraging digital assets. These include activities such as sales automation, CRM, online presentations, digital documentation etc. By creating an organisational structure around content and an environment to measure its consumption, buyer interest and purchasing intent can be gauged and influenced to convert sales.

In short, digital selling is an important component of the sales process, while using social networks provides scope in increasing revenue.

If your company doesn't want to get left behind, training your staff to understand and harness the power of digital technologies will generate leads by enabling them to branch out to consumers on these (seemingly endless list of) platforms, while giving them the autonomy to be as creative as possible with the new tools they have been given.

CLOSING THOUGHTS...

With digital transformation now more of a necessity than a choice for global organisations, sales leaders are integral to selling success. Visit our website to gain insight into how to lead digital and social selling in your business through strategy, executive sponsorship, motivating by example, assessment and training.

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Is Your B2B Sales Team On Track For Success in 2017?

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Is your B2B sales team on track for great results in 2017?

If they’re not prepared for the coming inbound sales revolution, the answer may be no.

Lucy Jones Head of Content Strategic Internet Consulting Ltd www.strategic-ic.co.uk @LucyJones_SIC

THE INBOUND MINDSET IS THE FUTURE OF SALES Over the last decade in B2B marketing, inbound tactics have increasingly become the most effective strategy for quality lead generation.

However, many organisations adopting inbound marketing still find lead follow-up to be a challenge. Yet as so many organisations follow a traditional, legacy sales model - is that any surprise?

Just as the inbound movement has caused marketing to adapt to how people buy today, sales must now enter its own inbound revolution. For sales reps, this means shifting from a ‘closing’ mindset to one of helpful selling; it’s more important than ever to earn the trust of today’s buyers by listening to their challenges.

So is your sales team ready to adapt to an inbound mindset? Here are four ways to ensure your sales team stays on track in 2017.

1. GIVE YOUR TEAM INBOUND SALES TRAINING

2. PRIORITISE SALES AND MARKETING ALIGNMENT

For your team to understand how and why sales is evolving, make sure everyone involved in your sales process understands the core theory behind the inbound sales methodology - and knows how sales enablement can help them.

Although sales and marketing alignment is mentioned above, it’s worth mentioning again.

It’s that important!

At a top level glance, the inbound sales methodology adapts to how buyers purchase today. Outbound is no longer effective. So, like inbound marketing, inbound sales works to prioritise helpful nurture; supporting leads through their buying journey rather than pushing the sale or interrupting.

Sales enablement describes the process of providing sales teams with the business intelligence, marketing resources and lead insight they need to develop effective buyerchallenge-focussed conversations. Marketing and sales alignment lies at the core of successful sales enablement.

In traditional processes, 79% of sales reps don’t have access to lead interaction history before reaching out.

But with the right sales/marketing alignment, improved lead quality, reduced sales cycles, and more fruitful lead conversations can result.

Of course, adopting any new process or mindset requires training investment and buy-in. That may take time, so explore training options now to be on track for 2017.

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True alignment allows for more than sales enablement alone. It’s key to improving lead quality and transparent action across an organisation. The first step to effective strategies in 2017 is to create an SLA (servicelevel agreement) between sales and marketing; 82% of businesses with tightly aligned SLAs believe their marketing to be effective according to HubSpot. Largely, this success stems from keeping everyone in the business on the same page; SLA’s clearly outline which team (sales or marketing) is responsible for what action, meaning the whole organisation gains clarity on exactly which leads are MQL’s (marketing qualified leads) or SQL’s (sales qualified leads), and what to do next.

As sales teams typically comment that ‘marketing delivers poor quality leads’, having a strategy for better aligned, transparent working will only advance the quality of your 2017 sales and marketing activity.

According to the HubSpot State of Inbound 2016, sales enablement and social selling are increasingly prioritised -

16%

of organisations now plan to invest in Sales Enablement as a priority.

3. IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, INTEGRATE YOUR CRM AND MARKETING AUTOMATION PLATFORM Of course, it’s hard to truly align sales and marketing teams without the right technology.

To really advance, your CRM and marketing automation platforms should be integrated otherwise your business will be stuck in siloes, and fail to become transparent or aligned.

So if your current CRM is currently just a spreadsheet, or lacks integration capacity with your marketing automation platform, consider exploring other options.

4. INCREASE SOCIAL SELLING, DECREASE COLD CALLING, AND PRIORITISE CONVERSATION IN THE ENVIRONMENTS YOUR BUYERS USE Oh, cold calling. Like breaking your diet in the middle of the night, cold calling and other outbound tactics remain dark temptations. But, just like breaking your diet, they won’t bring the long-term results you want. You know that. So be strong.

Moving away from familiar-but-ineffective strategies can be difficult and again requires a time/resource investment.

But strategies like social selling will help you reach the leads you want - and earn trust and credibility. 42% of sales people are already communicating via LinkedIn and Twitter for business purposes (HubSpot). Plus as 55% of buyers do all their research using social networks, it makes sense to prioritise social - and position your team to communicate via whatever platform the buyer is on. Think outside of the phone call!

FOCUS ON HELPING, NOT SELLING Above all, the message to take away here is to stop and rethink B2B selling in 2017. Whatever your goals and targets, switching practices to more buyer-centric methods has been on the horizon for a while, but there’s no denying that now really is the time to pay attention to inbound approaches.

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Transactional Analysis: BEFOR E DEV G N EL HI

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the Key to Self-Awareness in Selling

My research over the last thirty years suggests that team sales success is significantly influenced by line managers and by the existence of a robust sales process, but what about the individual salesperson?

The big mistake many companies make is to concentrate their primary focus the individual salesperson’s personality, skills, and experience.

However, as I’ve said hundreds of times in the past, the place to begin is with systematically defining the sales process and ensuring that all salespeople adhere to the process. The latter is achieved by ensuring that line managers are taught how a) monitor implementation of the process and b) coach improvement of the process. Only then do you turn your attention to developing the individual salesperson.

That’s not to underestimate the effort needed to get to this third stage.

How to achieve the first two stages has been covered at length in other publications. (Coaching Champions: How to build a

It is also worth pointing out that ‘personal development’ means exactly that –development which is personally concentrated upon an individual. It is about taking someone’s performance to the next level. You train someone to implement the sales process; you coach someone to improve; provided that person has already attained a basic level of acceptable performance.

The scope of this article is that personal development of the type described here is for people already achieving the minimum standard – and that does not necessarily mean a sales target (an explanation of this will follow in future articles on the topic). Therefore, you will primarily be seeking to develop people who in their own mind may already be successful. And that’s where your problems begin.

winning sales team. Frank Salisbury. Oak Tree Press. 2011.)

SALES PROCESS

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MANAGERS AS COACHES

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT OF SALESPEOPLE

THREE KEY FACTORS TO PERSONAL SUCCESS IN SELLING. C O M M U N I CATI O N S ELF- M OTIVATI O N S ELF- ESTEEM What I have found is that there are three key factors which exist in relation to personal success in selling: 1. The manner in which the individual salesperson communicates with customers, colleagues and managers 2. Whether or not the individual is self-motivated enough to take personal responsibility for their actions and behaviours

Salespeople need to accept that the way in which they communicate with the customer ultimately determines the outcome of the sale.

Effective customer-focussed sales communication involves: •

Establishing common ground with the customer.

•

Talking the customer’s language.

•

Reading and interpreting customer responses.

•

Exploring solutions with the customer.

•

Building long-term customer relationships.

If you’ve read my article ‘Transactional Analysis in Sales’, you might already accept that our past relationships with people in authority can often have a dramatic effect on the style of our sales communication with customers who may represent our current authority figures.

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3. How they perceive themselves to be qualified and able to succeed.

Recruitment advertisements for salespeople tend to ask for ‘selfmotivated’ individuals. Yet in most management training programmes, motivating employees is a recurring theme. That said, many professionals in the fields of sports and the performing arts appear to be driven to succeed without external motivation – in other words – self-motivated.

In motivating themselves other professionals focus on the things which will improve their performance.

Selling has not enjoyed a particularly positive reputation as a professional occupation.

Partly because of this most people currently in a sales role would not have chosen sales as a career choice. The premise is that many salespeople lack the level of self-esteem that exists in many other professions. This in itself may appear to many to be at odds with the perceived image of the stereotypical salesperson.

Whilst these are important factors in sales success their existence at the optimum level are often missing due primarily to a lack of feedback about the salesperson’s style of communication, a lack of focus in terms of what they are personally responsible for, and often the existence of self-doubt.

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SALES SUCCESS FACTORS

LACK OF SUCCESS CAUSED BY

THE COACH

SELF-AWARENESS

LACK OF FEEDBACK

SELF-MOTIVATION

LACK OF FOCUS

SELF-ESTEEM

SELF-DOUBT

These are all extremely personal factors and any implied criticism that any of these factors may not be operating at an already peak level can engender a negative reaction. You will have heard people say: ‘I don’t mind criticism provided it is constructive’. What they actually mean is: ‘I don’t mind criticism provided it is not personal’. Yet the factors you may have to deal with will inevitably include the three personal factors mentioned, therefore it is highly likely that you will meet resistance – whether overt or covert – the latter being more difficult to deal with.

Essentially you are asking people to change. So how can this be facilitated?

Whilst most publications on the topic of change will rightly expound the view that any change is difficult for people, those writers who are enlightened will also say that the key to enabling change is involvement; giving people a reason for the

Transactional analysis is essentially a deep understanding of how we relate to other people, and offers suggestions for improvement. It is based upon the premise that people can change if they know why and how. So how do they come to that realisation?

SELF-AWARENESS, TA, AND THE COACH If the key to improvement is Self-Awareness, the tool can be Transactional Analysis, and the locksmith is the Coach.

As I’ve already explained, selling is a macho business and any admission of failings in supposedly ‘soft’ factors such as communication, motivation, and self-esteem are generally swept under the carpet. Exposing people

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to the theory and application of TA (both salespeople and managers) can facilitate self-awareness and through this a willingness to improve.

The key to enabling this and implementing realistic improvement plans is the coach.

For further information on this topic and others related to improving the performance of the sales team, Frank Salisbury can be contacted by email at info@thesalisburypartnership.com

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PEOPLE CAN CHANGE

change; and explaining the benefits of changing either working practices or personal behaviour. That’s where transactional analysis can help.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

BY F R A

COMMUNICATION

Director of Academic Standards The International College of Professional Selling info@thesalisburypartnership.com www.thesalisburypartnership.com

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Are You a Sales Worker Bee? Have you ever observed a worker bee? They seem to go from flower to flower looking for pollen but then another bee comes along and does the same thing.

I often wonder if the first bee gets attracted by the next flower and doesn't spend enough time getting the most out of the first one it landed on.

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If you don't have a system to manage your time, opportunities and follow-up, you're going to struggle.

Allow me to tell you the name of the salesperson who is better organized, who does what they say they're going to do when they said they were going to do it and who isn't so easily distracted. That salesperson's name is woman. Research has shown that women pay more attention to detail than men and we all know that

news is that there are tools to help us be better organized and to stay focused but we just need to use them. The bad news - for most salesmen at least - is that most saleswomen already are.

Oh, and in case you wondered, (or already knew and are shooting holes in my analogy) it surprised me to learn that worker bees are all female but they are born sterile and their purpose is to work for their entire lifespan. They are essentially the lifeblood of the hive. Without them, there would be no one to care for the queen bee (no prizes for guessing her gender), produce honey and pollinate

“Allow me to tell you the name of the salesperson who is better organized, who does what they say they're going to do when they said they were going to do it and who isn't so easily distracted.

That salesperson's name is woman.� women are much better listeners than men. Now give them the advantage of being better at staying focused and at following up and it's a virtual slam dunk, right? Maybe not.

Ultimately, the level of success that a salesperson enjoys is up to them. How hard they work, how dedicated they are to improving their sales skills and how focused they are at providing excellent service to their customers are critical elements of success. But all of those elements are significantly compromised when we're not sufficiently organized to follow up effectively and when we can't remain extremely focused on one opportunity at a time. The good

plants and flowers. Worker bees are also afforded the privilege of ejecting the unusable drone bees from the hive. Drone bees are all male and their only job is to mate with the queen. While that may sound like a great job, it's actually a thankless task because the queen will effectively kill all the drones she mates with.

B

While it's important to be very focused in every profession, I believe that sales is the one where it matters the most. One of the biggest reasons why salespeople fail, or are less successful than they could be, is because of poor followup. That's not just my opinion.

That's the conclusion of extensive research and apparently, it's not getting any better. Additional distractions such as mobile phones, tablets, instant messaging, social media and fantasy football (I had to throw that one in there) have left salespeople struggling to manage time and their schedules. We all know the importance of good time management and great follow up. It's an essential component of success.

If you're a Worker Bee salesperson, how much pollen (revenue) are you leaving to the other bees (your competitors) when you chase that new lead or new opportunity? What tools are you using to keep yourself organized? How are you staying on track? How do you remember to do what you said you were going to do and then do it?

If you're too easily distracted you'll struggle even more and you'll never achieve your full earnings potential - assuming that you can hold on to your job. If you don't return calls promptly and if you don't answer emails quickly, your customers and prospects will find someone who will.

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rom time to time I have to get myself in check and make sure that I'm not doing the same thing as the bee. I have an opportunity - or opportunities - and the next one comes along so the temptation is to go after that metaphorical pollen.

But what about the pollen (revenue) in the other flowers (opportunities) I was working on? Am I going to leave them for the next bee (recruiter) to come along and clean up? I'm happy to say that for the most part, the answer is no. I tend to be very focused but it's easy to see how others may not have that same focus and therefore miss out on some great opportunities because of the attraction to the shiny new ones.

Chief Talent Guru Logitalent, Inc

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How B2B Sales Will Change in 2017?

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But this article is going to introduce you to several key sales trends that will dominate in 2017.

Email marketing has been a fixture of B2B marketing for many years now. Every year someone claims email marketing is about to die, yet this never seems to be the case.

Email campaigns are as effective now as they have ever been. Some studies have even revealed email marketing campaigns are the most effective B2B marketing option open to you.

CONFIDENCE IS STARTING FROM AN ALL-TIME LOW This year only 30% of B2B marketers thought they were effective. This marks a drop of almost 20% in a matter of one year.

Confidence has never been this low.

What it means is 2017 is going to lead to a lot of soul searching throughout every industry. People are going to have to look at their strategies and consider whether they are really getting the most for their money.

There are a lot of books sellers can read on this subject, but the majority of B2B salespeople are going to have to go back to the beginning.

DATA WILL PLAY AN EVEN GREATER ROLE IN GIVING YOU AN ADVANTAGE The most successful B2B sellers are using data almost exclusively to help influence their decisions. Despite the talk of data, one of the trends shaping marketing is that most companies are still not tracking data from basic sources, such as social media.

MOBILE EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS WILL GAIN IN IMPORTANCE

This form of marketing is set to evolve in 2017 with mobile email marketing campaigns. One of the areas many companies neglect is making their email marketing campaigns mobile-friendly.

With over half of your potential audience browsing exclusively from their mobile, they need to be able to read your emails on a mobile device unhindered. Luckily, many email marketing platforms have mobile functionality already built-in. Make sure you’re working with them.

NEW APPS AND CREATION SUITES WILL DRIVE DOWN THE COST OF INTERACTIVE CONTENT Every B2B marketing campaign manager knows interactive content gains the highest levels of engagement. Videos, slide shows, and podcasts are just some content types that can lead to you engaging customers and retaining their interest.

Previously, many B2B sellers have stayed away from them because they’re costlier to go about building.

New apps and new creation suites have done a lot to drive down the cost of interactive content. The sheer amount of it and the level of demand have encouraged the building of cheaper and more affordable creation options.

The driving down of interactive content prices will increase the amount of interactive content online as companies begin to explore using it as a tool.

MARKETING APPS BECOME MORE INNOVATIVE B2B sellers are well aware of the importance of the user experience.

You need to make it easy for your B2B leads to do what you want them to do. The shorter the path the more likely your B2B prospects are to engage with you. Marketing apps are helping make things easier for customers more than ever before.

Using marketing apps will start to go mainstream in the world of business sales in the next few months. These apps can connect directly with buyers and provide them with a quicker service.

One way innovative companies are using apps is to create exclusive apps for trade shows, networking, and special events.

LAST WORD – WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN 2017?

You never know what’s going to happen by the time 2017 comes around. There are strong indications that content marketing is going to become more interactive and the user experience will become more important than ever. The main driving force behind these trends is more competition.

Companies are constantly looking for new ways to get ahead of the crowd, and 2017 could be a defining year for a lot of brands.

Whatever happens in 2017, it will be interesting.

What do you think are the main trends that are going to change B2B sales in 2017?

A

Early adopters will find they have a greater advantage than ever because of this. Most experts agree a huge number of companies will still have holes in their data gathering strategies. B2B sales agents big and small will find adopting a data gathering strategy will give them a huge advantage.

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ne of the biggest problems with B2B sales is predicting the future. You have to be on top of the latest trends in the world of B2B to do it. Otherwise, you’re going to have a lot of problems achieving your goals. One of the mistakes that can ruin any lead generation campaign is not staying on top of the latest trends within your industry.

Growth Marketer, Business Journalist with contributions to Forbes, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Inc., Fortune, and more. @ajagrawal24

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Is 2017 the Year of Value Selling?

Value is a vital element to sales success for 2017, according to insights from Peter Ostrow, Research Director of Sales Enablement Strategies for research advisory firm SiriusDecisions.

I

n an exclusive interview, the Value of Value Selling & Marketing, Mr. Ostrow revealed new research and discussed the critical role “value” can play in meeting new buyer demands, driving higher win rates and getting more sales reps to meet or beat quota goals.

Peter was quick to reveal research that shows just how hard it can be to achieve these goals in 2017, as the buyer’s decision-making journey has become more complex.

He offered three tips to excel in 2017:

1.

BUYER JOURNEYS ARE TOUGHER TO FACILITATE.

For a typical deal, Mr. Ostrow indicates 43% of opportunities

now have five or more stakeholders involved in each purchase decision and the vast majority of deals have two or more departments involved (76%).

As a result of more stakeholders and departments, it is more difficult to gain consensus amongst these different constituents: each with their own challenges, solution vision, and what “value” means to them.

With so many involved in the decision-making process, your sales reps are likely not getting audiences with all involved. They now have to rely on mobilizers / champions to make the case and build consensus.

Facilitating your sales reps to collaborate with the mobilizer/ champion so they can clearly and confidently convey the unique value of your proposed solution internally the key between a solid win, or disappointing loss.

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Over 71% of executives indicated the #1 issue was the

“inability for sales reps to articulate unique business value”

Despite rumors to the contrary, Mr. Ostrow indicates that a mere 9% of buyers rated “price” as their keydeciding factor.

Your buyers are definitely concerned about the economics of each purchase decision, but care more about the unique business value and ROI you can deliver, and a smooth / better buying experience versus price.

3.

VALUE ARTICULATION REMAINS THE TOP QUOTA CHALLENGE

A paltry 41% of sales reps currently meet or exceed quota goals.

According to Mr. Ostrow, this means a whopping 59% are falling short each year.

So why the quota challenge? Each year, SiriusDecisions surveys sales execs to find the root cause. And this year, the quota shortfall was not a lack of qualified leads, sales training, product mix or social selling skills.

Over 71% of executives indicated the #1 issue was the “inability for sales reps to articulate unique

Unfortunately, this was the sixth year in a row Value was the top issue, since way back in 2011. Old habits die hard, as the majority of prospect engagements revolve around demos, features and price, versus the differentiating value that buyers need to understand.

For another year, it is clear that sales reps are just not equipped to properly communicate and quantify value to prospects. It is obvious they need not just training to shift from features / price to value, but much more direct guidance, support and tools to fuel value conversations.

In order to make sales quota, sales reps must be empowered to easily assess, articulate and quantify your unique value to each unique prospect.

When it comes to value selling, and the use of what SiriusDecisions calls “Value Actualization Tools”, brand new research on buyer sentiment indicates: •

•

The Tools are best received by and leveraged with prospects in Manufacturing, Technology & Financial Services 40% of IT professionals like to be engaged with these Tools vs. other personas, despite the fact that the majority of technology purchase decisions have shifted to the business.

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•

Tools are more likely leveraged for Committee vs.

Independent decisions

•

The Tools are used by 57% of procurement & sourcing professionals, demonstrating that a case for value vs. price can be made.

•

The Tools are leveraged by larger companies, with those prospects >$50M , 24% likely to use / apply in their decision making.

•

The younger generation of prospects leverage these Tools for their decision making process.

From the SiriusDecisions research, your 2017 sales reps need to be better enabled to navigate the consensus sales and buying committees, evolve from price and discounting, and better communicate and quantify value.

Are you arming your sales reps the value content, training and actualization tools they need to succeed in 2017? This article was originally published on smartsellingtools.com T

Sales reps will tell you they lost the deal because the price was too high, but that may not be the case.

business value”.

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IT’S ABSOLUTELY NOT ABOUT PRICE

CEO and Founder Alinean

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