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.
B2B Sales: Is your funnel fighting fit or fundamentally flabby?
The "funnel" is one of the most powerful metaphors in B2B sales and marketing. It describes the passage of prospects through a buying decision...
Is B2B selling art or science – or is it engineering?
Is sales an art or a science? Traditionalists used to think of sales as a combination of art and heroics. A recent article in...
You can create brilliant content marketing and still miss the point
Content marketing is getting a great deal of attention. A number of studies point to it as one of the fastest growth areas in...
Who should own the funnel: sales or marketing? [includes video]
Kudos to the team at Econsultancy for an excellent event last week at Funnel 2012. I gave a keynote presentation on the topic of...
B2B Sales has evolved. Have you?
The folks at Postwire have come up with a great infographic to summarise the evolution of the salesperson. Did you know: That most of the...
If Alignment is such a good thing, why is it so hard to achieve?
It would be hard to find anyone prepared to argue against the benefits of sales and marketing alignment. It's a proven fact (we'll come...
Why the COI (Cost of Inaction) always needs to come before the ROI
If you're selling high-value B2B products or services, you've probably been involved in coming up with ROI (return on investment) calculations to justify your...
Why does sales training have such a poor ROI?
The statistics certainly make for uncomfortable reading. According to a substantial body of published research - some of it by sales training companies themselves...
Why is accurate sales forecasting such a challenge?
According to the latest research published by CSO Insights, less than half of all forecasted sales opportunities actually result in a sales win. Just...
Neil Rackham on the changing face of B2B buying
Neil Rackham - the inventor of SPIN Selling - offered some of his thoughts on the changing face of B2B buying in a recent...
3 key steps to building a stronger Sales Funnel for 2013
We're already into the last quarter of 2012. If you're in a complex sales environment with lengthy decision-making processes, this year's final revenue number...
Sales people need to act like personal trainers, not bartenders
In recent article for the members of the Sales Leadership Roundtable, Andrew Kent posed the question "Are your reps bartenders or personal trainers?" It's...
What sets you apart?
So - what sets you apart? It's probably the single most important question that any organisation in a competitive market needs to answer. It's...
Are you appealing to budget makers or budget takers?
Are your sales and marketing messages targeted at budget makers or budget takers? In most complex, high value sales environments, of course you need...
Want to stand out from the crowd? Then stop playing buzzword bingo
Is your company innovative? Are you customer-focused? Are your solutions best of breed or best in class? What about market-leading? And while we're about...
B2B sales: stop rushing and you’ll sell faster
I've been called in by a number of clients who believe that they have a bottom-of-funnel sales problem. Their sales opportunities just seem to...
3 go-to-market strategies: only one winner
If you're a technology company with a high-value B2B offering that requires an on-going direct sales interaction with your prospects, you have three go-to-market...
Is your target market small enough?
It's not a question that comes naturally to many CEOs or, let's be honest, to most investors. Here's the problem: for growth phase companies,...
Banning BANT: it’s not how big the budget is, but how big the issue is
Regular readers will know that I'm no great fan of the traditional BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe) approach to sales qualification. It might...
How can sales people prevent premature elaboration?
It's not a very edifying sight, but it happens way, way too often. A prospect gives the faintest acknowledgement of a potential issue, and...