If you sound like a contestant from The Apprentice or if the customer believes that they are being sold AT, you have already failed.

Salespeople who think that it’s all about price aren’t required: If it can be sold on the internet at the lowest price, you can take the huge cost of a sales team out of the equation.

We all desperately need brilliant sales professionals far more than ever before – to help us, guide us, keep us informed and stop us from making diabolically stupid buying decisions.

Salespeople need to “Earn the right” to become suppliers more than they ever did before.

For all salespeople - Driving around and talking to people for a living, with no recognisable return for the time or money spent by your employer - is a job description that belongs in the past.

Ignore the people who say that the sales industry needs to become professionalised: it already has.