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.
3 critical questions for B2B sales: Why Change? Why Now? Why You?
Your company is facing an increasingly strong competitor - but you won't find them listed in any Google search of the key players in...
Your salespeople are spending too much time with the wrong people
…or at least, that's the conclusion from a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. In it, the authors of the Challenger Sale reveal...
Exclusive McKinsey Interview: Finding the Mountaintops in Your Markets
Homayoun Hatami of McKinsey is one of the co-authors of the widely acclaimed "Sales Growth - Five Proven Strategies from the World's Sales Leaders"....
B2B Sales + Marketing: how much demand do you really need to generate?
How much demand do you really generate each month to hit your revenue targets? It's a question that vexes many B2B sales and marketing...
4 distinctively different states of the B2B buying decision process
I've written before about the Buyer's Journey, and about the stages that your b2b prospects go through in their buying decision process. That journey...
The Harvard Business Review explores what makes a great tweet
Twitter is a runaway success, with more than half-a-billion registered users, and a community that spans both business and consumer interests. But what makes...
McKinsey: 5 winning strategies of the world’s top sales organisations
Pär Edin and his colleagues at McKinsey believe they have identified the five winning strategies that distinguish the world's leading sales organisations from their...
Are you trying to address too big a market – or solve too many problems?
Are you trying to address too big a market - or solve too many problems? I don't know about you, but I'm always uneasy when...
SaaS means you can never afford to stop selling
Like mobile operators, the economics of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors are profoundly affected by churn - the rate at which they lose existing customers. Any...
What Matters Now? – and why organisations must be built on values
I wonder if I'm alone when I look around at the circumstances that have led to the continuing crisis in our economy (is anyone...
What’s holding your business back? Try this 12-point action framework
What would happen if you were able to double your sales and marketing resources overnight? Assuming that you haven't already saturated your target market,...
Applying Smarter Metrics to your Sales and Marketing Funnel
According to some of the latest reports from Sirius Decisions, CSO Insights and other leading B2B research organisations, the best-in-class sales and marketing organisations...
Perhaps there’s no such thing as solution selling – only solution buying
There's a multi-million $ industry built up around solution selling. Training companies deliver courses promising to help delegates achieve it. Authors write books promising...
6 Critical Foundations of the new “Solution Selling”
Faced with increasing competition, commoditisation and margin erosion most B2B vendors have chosen to embrace "solution selling" in one form or another. But, as...
Equipping your salespeople to control the customer conversation
Described as "The most important advance in selling for many years" by no less an authority than Neil (SPIN Selling) Rackham, The Challenger Sale...
B2B Buying Cycle Alignment: 4 in 5 sales organisations must do better
CSO Insights have just published their 2012 Sales Management Optimisation study. As always, the conclusions from their latest research make compelling reading -...
Why it’s bad news if your prospect shares your point of view
We want our prospects to agree with us, right? So why am I suggesting that the last thing you want is for your prospect...
If you’re serious about selling me a “solution”, don’t ask what keeps me up at night
I had a truly bizarre experience the other day. A senior (and very experienced, by the look of him) sales person actually started a...
Transforming your marketing from a cost centre to a revenue centre
According to many marketing leaders I speak to, B2B marketing budgets are coming under increasing pressure. These marketing leaders are being asked by their...
The 8 Points Your Elevator Pitch MUST Address
How can you simply and succinctly explain what you do to a potential prospect or other interested party, and make them want to learn...