Bob Apollo
Bob Apollo
Bob Apollo is the CEO of UK-based Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners, the B2B sales performance improvement specialists. Following a varied corporate career, Bob now works with a rapidly expanding client base of B2B-focused growth-phase technology companies, helping them to implement systematic sales processes that drive predictable revenue growth.
Why focusing on delighting your customers is a stupid strategy
If you read the profiles of many of the heads of customer service on LinkedIn (or the service areas of their company's websites), you...
Sales leadership, sales management and sales coaching
I was delighted to be asked by the folks at InsightSquared to contribute to their series of "expert interviews" on key topics in sales...
B2B Sales: Forecasting must be a blend of fact and judgement
Virtually every company I speak to wishes they could do a more accurate job of forecasting sales revenues. The issue is often particularly challenging...
B2B sales: “how are you?” and other cringe-worthy opening questions
Call me old fashioned if you will, but when someone I have never met phones me out of the blue and can't think of...
B2B Sales: how to stop your pipeline becoming a sewer
There's a huge difference between a healthy sales pipeline and a rotten one. It's long been a hobby horse of mine, and something I've...
A new definition for SaaS: “Sellotape assisted asset Sale” ;-)
I attended the always-excellent Megabuyte Forum event in London today (if you're a C-level executive in a UK-based technology business, you really should sign...
CSO Insights prove that lead scoring improves revenue performance
One of the most common sources of friction between poorly aligned sales and marketing organisations is sales' perception that the quality of leads generated...
B2B Complex Sales: why sales people should NEVER demo their product
Have you ever been on the receiving end of a product demo that seems to go on interminably until you feel that you have...
How can B2B sales + marketing work more effectively together?
I recently suggested that marketing needs to "fieldsource" more ideas from sales. The message obviously struck a chord, because Brendan Cournoyer, Content Marketing Manager...
Why your salespeople’s inability to communicate value is killing sales
Sirius Decisions are just the latest in a long line of analysts to declare that the #1 factor preventing companies from achieving their revenue...
7 Prescriptions for Aligning B2B Marketing, Selling and Buying
The recent Sales 2.0 Conference in London seemed to me to be a great success. The auditorium was full for the opening address, the...
B2B Complex Sales: the 4 states of the buying decision mindset
Are your prospects Painting by Numbers, on a Quest for the Grail, Lost in the Fog, or running around like Headless Chickens? There's been a...
Connecting the Buyer’s Journey, Your Pipeline and Your Revenue Goals
The changing shape of the buyer's journey has introduced a raft of new issues for sales leaders who are trying to manage sales pipelines...
3 out of 4 companies are taking the wrong approach to sales coaching
As you can imagine, I get to speak to a fair number of B2B-focused CEOs and sales leaders - and I can't recall any...
Connecting the Marketing Message with the Sales Conversation
I recently recorded an on-demand webinar with BrightTALK on the increasingly important need to connect your marketing messages with the conversations your sales people...
B2B Sales+Marketing: why it’s time to stop generating new leads
I hope the headline caught your intention - it was intended to. After all, aren't fresh leads the lifeblood of any company that depends...
Why Marketing needs to FieldSource more ideas from Sales
For an industry that has embraced so many "lean" and "agile" principles when it comes to software development, it's always surprised and frustrated me...
What have you learned from your top sales performers?
What is it that your top sales performers do better than anyone else? Part of the explanation may, of course, be simply that they...
The management skill that’s missing in two-thirds of sales organisations
Miller Heiman's always-excellent research programme has thrown up another compelling statistic: only 34% of all the sales organisations surveyed believed that their management team...
The 3 levels of sales qualification: account, opportunity, sponsor
It makes for pretty uncomfortable reading: CSO Insights' latest global study of sales forecast accuracy suggests that - on a deal-by-deal basis - it...