Joining me on this episode of Accelerate! are my guests Anneke Seley and Britton Manasco, coauthors of the new book, Next Era Selling: 5 Strategies to Make Your Business Unstoppable. Anneke is the CEO and Founder of Reality Works Group, and coauthor of a previous book, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology. Britton is the CEO and Founder of Visible Impact. Among the many topics that Anneke, Britton, and I discuss are how they came to write their book, the external trends that are forcing sales organizations to change, what established companies can learn from agile startups, and the new melding of inside and field sales teams.

  KEY TAKEAWAYS

[1:10] Anneke was an early employee at Oracle, where she saw that the company rewarded coders and salespeople. She learned to sell, started the inside sales organization, and wrote Sales 2.0 about her experiences.

[2:21] Britton started as a business journalist, then moved to Peppers & Rogers Group. He shifted into marketing consulting, and then he launched a firm to elevate companies as thought leaders and trust authorities. He watched trends in selling.

[8:15] How fast-growth VC-backed companies have grabbed the idea of selling digitally, socially, and virtually, with energy.

[10:36] Why networked and remote sales are increasing, while face-to-face meetings are decreasing. And what it means for you.

[13:02] Field sales is looking more like inside sales. They don’t go on site, and they use the technology of inside sales.

[14:22] How sales teams need to shift the ways they sell in response to changes in how buyers buy.

[16:42] Inside sales has been elevated from a tactical function of generating leads for the field, to a strategic, C-level initiative.

[20:45] How companies like Oracle are breaking the ceilings for inside sales, for account size and volume.

[33:55] Why building a virtual relationship is more difficult than building a face-to-face relationship, but is just as important.

[37:00] The bigger the account is, the less predictable it is. To be effective with large accounts, your sales team should have both transactional and key account based experience.

MORE ABOUT ANNEKE SELEY AND
BRITTON MANASCO

Anneke, what’s your most powerful sales attribute?
Curiosity.

Britton, what’s your most powerful sales attribute?
Good communication.

Anneke, who is your sales role model?
Steve Jobs.

Britton, who is your sales role model?
Marc Benioff.

Anneke, what’s one book that every salesperson should read?
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, by Adam Grant.

Britton, what’s one book that every salesperson should read?
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, by Daniel H. Pink.

Anneke, what music is on your playlist right now?

Whatever Britton tells me.

Britton, what music is on your playlist right now?

My son’s band, The Wayfarers’ Club, soon to appear on Spotify.

CONTACT ANNEKE SELEY

Contact Anneke: ASeley@RealityWorksGroup.com

Website: RealityWorksGroup.com

Twitter: @AnnekeSeley

LinkedIn: Anneke Seley

CONTACT BRITTON MANASCO

Twitter: @BrittonManasco

Website: NextEraSelling.com

Website: VisibleImpact.com