10 of the best from 2017...

As you reflect on 2017, and as your thoughts turn to what you seek to achieve for yourself and for your organisation in 2018, I hope that you might find some of our more popular articles helpful in shaping your thinking.

2017 has been a year in which the typical buying process for complex B2B sales has often become even more complicated, taken even longer and all-too-often resulted in a decision to stick with the status quo and do nothing.

It's been a year in which the gap between the top sales performers and the rest has often continued to widen, and in which it has taken even longer for the average new sales hire to become fully productive.

But it's also been a year in which new lessons have been learned and new skills mastered, and in which the best sales organisations have continued to make impressive progress...

If you recognise any of these challenges or opportunities, then I hope you'll enjoy the following articles:

• The Case for Focusing on Critical Problems
• Drilling into the Need Behind the Need
• Revisiting the Buyer's Journey
• 4 Things you Need to Know About B2B Buying Decisions
• In Complex B2B Sales, You Face 3 Types of Competition
• The Best Sales Presentations are Designed From the Inside Out
• Sell the Difference!
• The Enduring Relevance of "Crossing the Chasm"
• Critical to B2B Sales Success - Stakeholder Assessments
• Why Every Sales Opportunity Needs a Regular Risk Assessment

According to a recent Sirius Decisions survey of top sales leaders, their #1 sales challenge was reported to be "our sales people's inability to understand buyer needs and connect them to the business value of our solution".

If one of your 2018 New Year Resolutions is to enable your sales organisation to do a better job of value selling, you might want to watch our latest on-demand webinar, download this introduction to our value selling system®, and take this 12-Point Value Selling Maturity Self-Assessment.

I'd like to close by wishing you, your colleagues, family and friends a Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year. And if you'd like to pick up on any of the ideas I've shared in this article, please take a look at my calendar and book a quick call.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Apollo is a Fellow of the Association of Professional Sales and the founder of UK-based Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners, home of the Value Selling System®. Following a successful career spanning start-ups, scale-ups and corporates, Bob now works with a growing client base of tech-based B2B-focused high-growth businesses, enabling them to progressively create, capture and confirm their distinctive value in every customer interaction.