The Gartner Sales Podcast with Brent Adamson

In this podcast, Nick and Brient discuss the dramatically changing role of sales reps in B2B selling as customers increasingly shift to digital purchase channels.  Within that context, the two introduce a particularly important opportunity for professional sellers to differentiate themselves in today’s buying landscape, given customers’ struggle to reach complex purchase decisions.  They close their conversation with a review of the internal organizational changes necessary to adapt the entire commercial engine (sales, marketing, success, service) to this new buying landscape.  

Craig Riley is a senior principal analyst with Gartner for Sales Leaders. As an analyst, Mr. Riley works with sales leaders from large and midsize enterprises to uncover best-practice solutions that address their most critical business challenges. His research has focused on improving sales force productivity, sales operations and inside sales. He frequently advises clients on how organizations can improve their new customer acquisition and prospecting efforts.

Run Time 32:32

During this episode, Brent, Dave, and Maria discuss three imperatives all sales leaders should consider to position their organizations for a rapid recovery in the post-pandemic commercial landscape.  Starting with a discussion on managing competing time horizons, the conversation then turns to enabling virtual selling, redeploying resources, and establishing a unified commercial strategy.  

Run Time: 38 minutes.

During this podcast, Brent, Steve, and Tom dig into the core design principles of both customer buying journey mapping and “customer verifier” construction.  Discussion ranges broadly across both the implementation and potential use cases of a building a far more customer-centric view of deal status.  Along the way, the trio shares examples, reviews common challenges, and explores practical solutions.  

Run Time: 35:21

During this podcast, Brent and Danielle review a number of surprising findings from Gartner’s most recent work on front-line sales managers, including the statistically limited potential of sales coaching to boost sales performance.  In addition, they discuss Gartner’s sales manager performance diagnostic and share best practices from several companies significantly rethinking how they deploy and support sales managers in their own organizations.

Run Time 29:17

During this podcast, Brent and Neha discuss both the tactical and strategic considerations important to ensure virtual selling success among sales reps traditionally used to selling in person. They also explore the distinction between a short-term switch from in-person to virtual selling versus a longer, more strategic evolution toward fewer in-person sales interactions more broadly. 

Run Time: 25 Minutes

Dave Egloff is a Vice President, Analyst in Gartner's Sales Practice.  Mr. Egloff advises and writes on topics spanning sales strategy and operations.  His specialties include sales force design & deployment, sales performance optimization, organizational design, sales cost optimization, M&A, and workforce planning.

During this podcast, Brent and Craig explore the specific steps sales teams can take to adapt their commercial messaging for prospective customers navigating the world of COVID-19. They also review the importance of changing customer buying behavior, customer (re)segmentation, and competitor considerations.  

Runtime 30:10

During this podcast, Brent and Robert discuss the specific steps suppliers can take to significantly boost the value of customer-facing quarterly business reviews.  The conversation ranges across five dimensions:  purpose, content, attendees, frequency, and engagement style.   

Run Time: 34:27

Robert Blaisdell is a Sr. Director Analyst in the Gartner Sales Research and Advisory covering all aspects of sales but with a primary responsibility for account management and growth focusing on account planning and management along with key account management.  Mr. Blaisdell has 20 years of experience in strategic account management, sales enablement, sales L&D, strategic planning and marketing.

During this podcast, Brent and Shayne discuss design principles for any good sales kickoff meeting and then explore the application of those principles to a virtual setting.  The podcast also identifies and addresses a number of challenges and opportunities specific to the virtual setting.  

Run Time: 40:41

This content provides sales compensation leaders an accessible, conversational version of Steve’s latest thinking on sales compensation design for uncertain times.  Concepts reviewed include:

• Sales operations leaders will face difficult trade-offs between protecting sellers’ incentives earnings and meeting company cash-flow needs.
• Promptly updating an incentive plan improves seller morale, but moving too quickly in changing conditions may necessitate more changes later on.
• After the most acute phase of selling disruption ends, available revenue forecasts will still be highly uncertain.

During this podcast, Brent and Doug discuss how virtual training not only provides significant advantages, such as improving access to sellers, flexibility in training delivery and learning retention, but also reduces sales training costs. The podcast also covers best practices and key considerations for transitioning from face-to-face training to virtual training. 

As an analyst, Doug Bushée is recognized as a thought leader in sales and sales enablement. He has researched, written and spoken extensively on sales training, sales content and other topics related to seller and buyer enablement. Before coming to Gartner, Doug spent over 25 years leading sales, marketing and sales enablement teams for Xerox.

Run Time: 30 Minutes