2018 Sales Leaders Research Report

July 30th and 31st, 2018 is the inaugural Sales Innovation and Tech Fest in Australia and it's the MUST ATTEND event for all sales leaders in Asia-Pacific. The future of sales is driven by technology and every sales organization must adapt to avoid the debilitating rates of failure afflicting most sales teams.

Every sales organisation must transform to embrace technologies that deliver efficient results for profitable growth.

Click here to register and take advantage of a 'two for one' offer. The conference agenda was created based on executive roundtable forums with heads of sales across a range of industries. The following themes emerged as being most important to the sales community:

1.   Generating Consistent Sales Pipeline to Deliver Predictable Performance

2.   Disciplined Sales Cycle Processes

3.   The Future of Sales and Next Generation Technology

4.   Creating and Training the Sales Leaders of the Future

5.   Building a Sales-centric Culture

6.   Channels to Market and Omni-Channel Leverage

7.   Managing a Complicated Sales Landscape with Increasingly Knowledgeable Customers

8.   Sales Management Training and hoe to truly lead

9.   Utilising CRM Technology to enable process and Maximise Results

10. Building Successful Incentive Programs

You can download the entire report here. The content comes from over 50 senior sales leaders who revealed the trends and challenges being faced by them and their teams. Discussion focussed on how their organisations are using innovation and technology as an enabler to drive greater efficiency and competitive advantage. The report summarises the results and explores some of the challenges facing the sales profession, as well as the opportunities for change that creates greater success in competitive markets.

The themes identified in the research informed the agenda for the Sales Innovation and Tech Fest conference held in July 2018. This event is the first of its kind in Australia and will feature case studies, thought-leader presentations, discussion groups, product demonstrations and panels.

My own keynote is titled: Technology and Sales - The Final Frontier. Technology is creating the biggest opportunities for business in human history, and also the most serious threat to jobs. The question of whether a machine or algorithm can do a better job is dwarfed by whether we want humans to remain engaged. This is why Elon Musk raises existential concerns about AI even while investing in it, and why Bill Gates and others advocate for the universal wage, a tax on automation, to fund a looming employment apocalypse. This keynote explores the opportunities for sellers to remain relevant by going to the next level of productivity in blending human engagement with technology to win and retain customers.

I discuss sales leadership in my book, COMBO Prospecting, published by HarperCollins and The American Management Association (AMACOM) and you can purchase it here on Amazon.  If you valued this article, please hit the ‘like' button and also share via your Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook social media platforms. I encourage you to join the conversation or ask questions so feel free to add a comment. Please also follow my LinkedIn post page for all my articles.

Main Image: Flickr - Alaska Center for Energy and Power TP-15-4452-164