Artificial intelligence (AI) is finding its way into sales technology, but how can AI impact sales performance and revenue growth? This week, Doug Bushée and Betsy Gregory-Hosler speak with Gartner Senior Director and Analyst Robert Blaisdell to hear how AI helps sales organizations better align to buyer preferences for seller-free engagement and multithreaded sales experiences. Listeners will also hear how AI also enables CSOs to reduce sales cycles and increase forecasting accuracy. Robert Bla...
Sep 27, 2022•27 min•Ep. 27
Today’s selling environment is taking a toll on sellers. Supply chain issues, price increases, and the challenges presented by working in a more remote and digital environment lead to seller fatigue, decreased morale, and higher attrition. Sales leaders are working harder than ever to keep seller motivation high and address these issues. In this episode, the team sits down with Alice Walmesley, director, advisory, from the Gartner for Sales Leaders practice. Alice shares new Gartner research int...
Aug 24, 2022•20 min•Ep. 26
In this episode, the team sits down with Daniel Hawkyard, senior principal, advisory, from the Gartner for Sales Leaders practice. Daniel just hosted a gathering of sales leaders called “CSO Priorities for a Disrupted World” and has a collection of insights on the mindset of today’s leaders as they navigate an uncertain economic climate. Daniel Hawkyard is a senior principal in Gartner’s Expert Advisory team. He works with global sales executives to help them on their journey towards maturing th...
Jul 22, 2022•24 min•Ep. 25
In this episode, Craig sits down with Dan Gottlieb, senior director analyst from the Gartner for Sales practice. As the head of the Gartner for Sales Leaders Revenue Technology Strategy research agenda, Dan has the pulse of this exploding market. Dan and Craig discuss data from a couple of recent Gartner studies, and they talk about what’s happening today in revenue technology, from the current stack to what’s coming for the rest of 2022. Dan Gottlieb leads Gartner’s Revenue Technology Strategy ...
Jun 24, 2022•32 min•Ep. 24
In this episode, Craig sits down with Dale Chang, Operating Partner with Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Scale Venture Partners. Known as “Scale Dale,” he will share the key elements of the playbook required to drive explosive yet efficient growth. Dale Chang is the Operating Partner at Scale Venture Partners. In his role, Dale is a resource for guidance on evolving go-to-market strategies as well as providing best practices and benchmarks across the portfolio. Previously, Dale was a direct...
May 23, 2022•41 min•Ep. 23
In this episode of The Gartner Sales Podcast, Brent and Steve discuss three ways the rise of digital buying and selling will force sales leaders to reassess their use of technology to support commercial efforts. Steve provides sales leaders with specific recommendations to get ahead of the digital (r)evolution and ensure they maximize benefit from coming change.
Mar 09, 2022•31 min•Ep. 22
In this episode, Craig sits down with Olivia Nottebohm, chief revenue officer at Notion. Notion is a high-growth “decacorn” (a startup that has reached $10 billion-plus in valuation) that has used a groundbreaking go-to-market strategy to get there: community-led growth. Nottebohm provides actionable insights and best practices for building a community-led growth strategy, including the framework and best practices Notion leveraged.
Feb 01, 2022•43 min•Ep. 21
Brent Adamson and Gartner Executive Partner, Maria Boulden discuss the specific steps sales leaders can take to ensure their teams remain effective and engaged in a time of deep disruption to global supply chains. The two also consider implications for customer engagement and sales compensation.
Dec 17, 2021•39 min•Ep. 20
In this episode, Craig sits down with Doug Landis, growth partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Emergence Capital. Craig and Doug discuss the actionable insights from Doug’s experiences that drove impressive growth at Salesforce and Box and across the Emergence Capital portfolio. They discuss Doug’s repeatable framework for hypergrowth and dive into specifics around pipeline generation, sales enablement, tech stack and more.
Oct 20, 2021•42 min•Ep. 19
Brent and Gartner analyst Dan Gottlieb sit down to discuss today’s dynamic sales technology landscape, which can only be described as “mayhem.” Brent and Dan explore reasons for the intense activity and project where things are likely headed next. They also discuss advice for sales leaders considering the acquisition of sales technology in today’s market.
Sep 23, 2021•39 min•Ep. 18
In this episode, Craig sits down with Chris Degnan, Chief Revenue Officer of Snowflake. Craig and Chris will identify the actionable insights from Chris’ experiences (good and bad) that drove Snowflake’s impressive growth and led to the most successful IPO in stock market history. They discuss Degnan’s overall sales strategy and dive into specifics around pipeline generation, sales enablement, sales-marketing alignment, tech stack, and more. Runtime: 50:25
Jul 22, 2021•50 min•Ep. 17
Brent Adamson and Craig Rosenberg review each of the top five mistakes sales leadership teams commits when buying and implementing sales technology. Chief among those errors are a failure to account for the overall seller experience in introducing new technology and overlooking the need for a phased rollout aligned to different sellers’ openness to new tool adoption.
Jun 03, 2021•34 min•Ep. 16
In the rapidly evolving world of B2B buying, customers’ increasingly strong preference for a seller-free buying experience means suppliers must dramatically rethink the manner in which their sales reps interact with customers. At the most progressive companies, sales leaders see this evolution less as a zero-sum game between digital and human interaction and more as an opportunity to integrate the two far more tightly than ever before. In this podcast, Brent and Alice review two companies well d...
Mar 25, 2021•38 min•Ep. 15
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 com...
Feb 22, 2021•53 min•Ep. 14
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
Dec 19, 2020•32 min•Ep. 13
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.
Oct 22, 2020•38 min•Ep. 12
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
Oct 08, 2020•35 min•Ep. 11
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
Sep 25, 2020•29 min•Ep. 10
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
Sep 10, 2020•26 min•Ep. 9
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.
Aug 26, 2020•26 min•Ep. 8
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
Aug 12, 2020•30 min•Ep. 7
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 planni...
Jul 31, 2020•35 min•Ep. 6
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
Jul 15, 2020•41 min•Ep. 5
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 ph...
Jul 01, 2020•37 min•Ep. 3
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 ex...
Jun 29, 2020•30 min•Ep. 4
Brent Adamson sits down with Gartner’s Maria Boulden to discuss the challenges and risks of returning field sellers to the field, along with some of the protocols likely necessary to make that happen.
Jun 08, 2020•30 min•Ep. 2
Coming soon, the Gartner Sales Podcast, with Brent Adamson. The Gartner Sales Practice is excited to introduce its new podcast featuring some of our best researchers and analysts discussing their latest findings and the practical implications for sales leaders around the world.
May 22, 2020•1 min0
The single most unproductive question you can ask customers today is, “How can we help?” Gartner Distinguished Vice President and podcast host, Brent Adamson, examines two critical dimensions of customer engagement in a time of deep economic uncertainty and disruption: How to engage customers productively and how to manage tough customer conversations. Both are critically important for sales success today.
May 19, 2020•20 min•Ep. 1
