WBS conference looks at challenges facing the UK sales profession

Sales is a critical function in British companies and many sales professionals see it as a rewarding career. Yet little more than a third (35 per cent) of them believe it is well-regarded, and nearly half (47 per cent) feel it has a negative image.  

This is one of the key findings of the inaugural State of the Sales Profession Report produced by the Sales Excellence Hub at Warwick Business School.   

Roland Kassemeier, co-author of the report and Associate Professor of Marketing, said: “I think the major theme emerging from the study is the lack of professionalisation within the sector.” 

Only one in five (21 per cent) of the 125 sales leaders polled in the survey found it easy to find and hire sales talent, he said, and only four per cent of them said the UK education system helped them in this search by producing good sales professionals.  

Moreover, only 31 per cent of sales professionals are satisfied with professional development opportunities and just 37 per cent are happy with the organisational career development pathways offered to them.   

Speaking at the State of Sales 2024 Conference held at WBS London at The Shard, Dr Kassemeier concluded: “Clearly, talent acquisition and development present major challenges for the profession.”  

The purpose of the conference – the fifth in a series of events held by the Sales Excellence Hub since it was launched by Dr Kassemeier and Nick Lee, Professor of Marketing, at the beginning of 2024, was to identify and address these challenges.  

The State of Sales report outlined paths to a better future in the profession including a code of ethics, better professional sales qualifications and training, and improved adoption by sales forces of artificial intelligence. These, together with incentive plans offered to salespeople, were all actively discussed during the conference.  

Among a series of morning sessions, Professor Lee looked at how hot and cold ‘streaks’ of sales performance actually exist, and how they can be managed via the use of strategic break-taking; while Skyler Xie, PhD student at WBS, looked at how to build more inclusive sales teams. 

Meanwhile, Dean Al-Sened – Head of Public Sector and Enterprise at Abzorb and a Doctor of Business Administration student at WBS – considered the role of behavioural science in B2B sales.  

In the afternoon, thought leaders from practice and academia were brought together for a panel discussion on how the sharing of best practice and the better promotion of sales careers in schools and universities could help sales organisations meet the challenges ahead.  

“‘I’m still seeing a lot of people with dominant personalities applying for sales jobs,” Steven Elsham of Salesforce said. “But I’m looking for people who understand how to diagnose a business and who understand how people make decisions.” 

The Head of Marketing, Commerce, Service & Revenue Clouds at Salesforce, added: “We need to recognise sales as a professional discipline at the leadership level so we can drive the sales function to perform consistently in our organisations.” 

The Sales Excellence Hub at WBS  

Professor Lee said: “The whole idea of the Sales Excellence Hub has been to translate sales research into practice and connect sales professionals with sales researchers.” 

“Many people in business and sales might assume that academic research has nothing to offer them. They might think academia is just about asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but we want to put theories into the hands of people who can take action using them. 

“That is helped by the changing nature of sales research which nowadays can leverage much more on digital technology and large datasets.”     

Dr Kassemeier said that the State of the Sales Profession conference had been the culmination of a number of events during 2024 where academics had listened to people in the profession.  

“Based on what we learned we got a feeling for the biggest issues facing companies and gained an understanding of how we might help to solve them,” he said.    

“We want to create impactful knowledge and disseminate it widely. In an ideal world, someone will soon be presenting a solution based on an idea that started here. That’s the idea of the hub.”  

The Sales Excellence Hub is supported by the Institute of Sales Professionals, and Akeron, a software house based in Italy. 

Nick Lee and Roland Kassemeier will be teaching the Sales Excellence module on the Executive MBA, the Global Online MBA, the Global Online MBA (London), and the Accelerator MBA (London) programmes in 2025.