Latest insights

Experts identify skills shortages as the eighth-largest risk facing South African businesses and the seventh-greatest risk worldwide. South African businesses are competing with each other and many international businesses to hire and retain skilled workers. A number of employers look at the 35 percent and more unemployment rate and assume that staff don’t have any employment choices and that the competition isn’t fierce. For skilled workers, this is, however, not true. It has been reported that 60 percent of employees who left their jobs between April and October

Building your inside sales team is a challenging undertaking, but an important one. If you want to grow your business and your revenue, you need to build a winning inside sales team. Internal sales teams are the bedrock of the ever-increasingly important customer experience phenomenon and in the absence of a dynamic inside sales team, your customer relationships will quickly break down. Building your inside sales team will yield numerous benefits. It is less expensive, because there are no travel and other expenses to worry about. It’s measurable, because inside sales teams

A good salesperson sells products, but a great one offers solutions. In essence, this is what consultative selling is all about. In this era of instant communication, buyers already have a leg up on salespeople. The wide availability of internet resources means that a simple Google search may be enough for a buyer to learn about the product they’re interested in. With basic information already on hand, B2B buyers or procurement professionals will usually engage with sales reps further into the sales process. At this point, they’ll want to learn more about how a product

As a result of Covid-19, employers need to re-look office culture, teamwork, and talent strategies to acknowledge both a shifting business landscape and changing employee expectations. According to new research, physical well-being ranks third among employees’ top priorities after financial and mental well-being. With this in mind, Sarah Rice, chief people officer at Skynamo outlines how employers can build this into their employee retention strategies. Rice says that the pandemic has shone a spotlight on the importance of health and

Data-driven insights help companies make more informed decisions. B2B guided selling gives businesses the ability to synthesize, connect and enrich disparate data sources and helps to build a more complete picture of how buyers behave. This allows sellers to identify needs, predict behaviors, and close more sales. Business-to-business (B2B) companies often have vast data about their products, customers, and sales, but they don’t always know how to make sense of that data and draw actionable insights from it. This can be a daunting task in terms of tools and knowledge required.

2022 was set to be a year of growth and recovery for small businesses. However, the war in Ukraine is beginning to thwart this projection. The World Trade Organisation has recently slashed its global growth forecast to 2,8% from 4,1% before the war. This, coupled with supply chain disruptions and rising fuel and food prices, will create a further negative impact. Businesses need to start

Considering the new realities of the 2022 market, the food and beverage industry could certainly benefit from consultative selling. The F&B industry reported record growth in 2021, but that wasn’t enough for the industry to completely escape recent challenges—including but not limited to staffing shortages and a host of supply chain issues. In addition, the

Modern work culture is becoming increasingly demanding. Between navigating new technologies, acclimating to remote work environments, and keeping up with the daily grind, employees and managers alike may find themselves working longer hours and dealing with a lot of stress. These factors can negatively impact their ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance. A recent survey by the Health and Safety Executive revealed that 822,000 workers suffered from

Sending your sales and marketing teams into the field with a well-thought-out plan and a vision of their model client is key to successfully closing more deals. If your team doesn’t know who their ideal buyer is, they’re likely to waste a lot of time chasing dead leads and not knowing how to work around various objections to their offer. However, with a well-developed list of buyer personas, your business can more efficiently target the right candidates. What are buyer personas? Buyer personas help

Companies use many different metrics to quantify their success. Some of the more common ones include: reports to track and measure operations data, website traffic, and employee performance. Beyond these, customer lifetime value (CLV) has been identified as one of the most helpful business metrics. CLV carries special significance in the context of business growth. As a measure of performance, it represents the cumulative value that repeat customers bring to a company. This is particularly important since it’s more cost-effective to add value to existing customers than to find