Blog

Weekly thinking on consultative selling, sales leadership and building a team that sells on value.

9 September 2026

Ask someone how good they are and you’ll get an honest answer. It just won’t be a reliable one.

Ask somebody on your team what they’re best at and you’ll get an answer in a couple of seconds. Two or three things, named with confidence, and they’ll believe every word of it. Then ask who told them. That second question is the one I’ve watched stop people, and it has stopped a lot of […]

31 August 2026

You can teach someone to build a value case. You can’t teach them to want to be better.

Every commercial role has its own skill set, and all of them depend on the same ten capabilities. Here is what each one is holding up, and what happens when it is missing.

12 August 2026

Sales careers are built on ordinary Tuesdays.

A sales year is mostly a run of events. The big deal, the competitive bid, the quarterly review, the two day course, the kick off, the appraisal. They’re the moments everyone remembers, and they’re where people get judged. They’re also where nobody improves. An event puts you under a light and shows what you can […]

10 May 2026

The Self-Sufficiency Trap: Why Experienced Professionals Plateau

Early in my sales career, I was working harder than I had ever worked. The hours were there. The preparation was there. I showed up to every conversation as ready as I knew how to be. The results were still not coming. My manager kept pushing. More challenge. More questions about how I was approaching […]

5 May 2026

The Cost of Inaction: Why No Decision Is the Most Expensive Outcome in Consultative Sales

The deal had everything going for it. Strong relationship. Genuine need. The right solution. Six months of careful work by a Business Developer who had done almost everything right. And then, at the point where a decision should have been made, the customer said they needed more time. Three months later: still more time. Six […]

27 April 2026

The investment nobody is going to make for you is discretionary, but not optional.

The thing that separates people who improve from people who plateau is not a team session or scheduled training course…

12 April 2026

You Don’t Have to Be in Enterprise Sales to Sell Consultatively

Most B2B sellers have written off consultative selling before they’ve tried it. Not because they’ve tested it and found it wanting. Because they’ve decided it doesn’t apply to them. The assumption is understandable. The label conjures a particular image: a complex, multi-stakeholder deal with a 12-month sales cycle, a buying committee, and a procurement process […]

6 April 2026

Being liked is not the same as being valued

Early in my sales career, I thought I was doing everything right. I was working a major account at a global oil company. I met lots of people. Took clients to lunch and dinner. Played golf, attended events, kept the conversation easy. They genuinely seemed to enjoy my company. I focused on being fun to […]

30 March 2026

The question most consultative sellers never prepare

I was reviewing a discovery call with James a few years ago. He was a solid Business Developer. Prepared questions, good rapport, comfortable with silence. The customer had engaged genuinely throughout. By any standard measure, it had gone well. But when I asked him what he thought the customer would do differently after that meeting, […]