Huthwaite International

23/09/2026

Commercial performance often depends on two negotiations happening at the same time.

One with the supplier. Another inside the business.

In this blog, inspired by our conversation with Emma Pacey on Mastering Sales & Negotiations, we explore the concept of the double negotiation: aligning internal stakeholders while negotiating externally to deliver the best commercial outcome.

From customer focus and preparation to cross-functional influence, success depends on winning both conversations.

Read the full blog via the link in the comments 👇

21/09/2026

The latest episode of Mastering Sales & Negotiations is now live 🎙️

This week, we explore how sales teams can get more value from exhibitions and events, turning face-to-face conversations into genuine commercial opportunities.

Hosts Robin Hoyle and Rachel Massey speak with Tracy Shah, Joint Managing Director at Venture Marketing Group, about why so many organisations struggle to generate results from events, the mistakes that undermine performance on the stand, and what the most effective exhibitors do differently.

Listen now on our website or your favourite podcast platform (link in the comments)🎧

18/09/2026

📊 Sales teams don't have a data problem. They have a clarity problem.

In this week's Quick Win episode of Mastering Sales & Negotiations, hosts Rachel Massey and Robin Hoyle explore one of the biggest challenges facing commercial teams today: how to turn endless streams of data into meaningful action.

💡 Key takeaways include:
+ Why CRM data often becomes an administrative burden rather than a source of insight
+ How to identify the customer signals that genuinely matter
+ Where AI can help uncover patterns and guide better decisions
+ Why coaching remains essential for turning data into action

If your team is drowning in reports, dashboards and activity metrics but struggling to see tangible value, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now on your favourite podcast platform or on our website (link in the comments)

11/09/2026

Why doesn't training always lead to behaviour change?

One of the biggest challenges in learning and development is helping people apply new skills consistently after training ends.

Common barriers include:

🚫 Lack of time to practice
🚫 Competing priorities
🚫 Limited manager support
🚫 Old habits returning under pressure

Structured coaching helps overcome these barriers by providing regular feedback, accountability and opportunities to embed new skills in real-world situations.

In our "Power of structured coaching" webinar, we discuss how a structured coaching approach can help reinforce learning, support accountability and drive lasting performance improvement.

Watch the webinar on demand (link in comments) 👇

08/09/2026

The first episode of series 3 of Mastering Sales & Negotiations is now live🎙️

This week, we explore how sales teams can make better sense of their data, moving beyond dashboards and reports to uncover meaningful insights that drive real commercial impact.

Hosts Robin Hoyle and Rachel Massey reflect on the main takeaways from their conversation with Dr Simon Hefti, co-founder and chairman of D ONE, including why so many organisations struggle to turn customer and sales data into action, how AI can support better decision-making, and why trustworthy, connected data remains key.

Listen now on our website or your favourite podcast platform! Link in the comments 👇

04/09/2026

Atracsys build some of the most precise medical technology on the market. Their engineers could explain every spec in the room. What they couldn't always do was turn that expertise into a conversation the customer wanted to have.

Using SPIN Selling, Atracsys' technical teams learned to lead with the customer's problem, not their own product knowledge, building a more consistent, confident commercial culture as a result.

“With long sales cycles, limited opportunities and highly price-sensitive customers, we have to qualify carefully and make the most of every conversation.” — Luis Salcedo-Kosma, Atracsys

Read the full case study in the comments 👇

02/09/2026

When an opportunity stalls, it's tempting to blame the obvious things, like competition or budget.

But the real cause usually sits much earlier, at Recognition of Needs, where the customer is only asking one question: "Should we change, and is it worth changing?"

World-class sellers stay here. They uncover the need, build value for their differentiators, and shape the criteria the customer will decide by – before a proposal even exists.

Typical sellers rush past it. They respond to the need exactly as presented, then wonder why a promising deal "stalls for no apparent reason" – a classic sign of an underdeveloped opportunity or an unresolved concern.

For sales leaders, that's not a coaching note for one seller. It's a question of whether your process is built to develop opportunities, or just process them.

Our whitepaper, Developing Sales Opportunities, maps world-class vs typical behaviour across every phase of the Buying Cycle, and shows exactly where the commercial gap opens up.

Download the whitepaper in the comments 👇

19/08/2026

Often, "salespeople" don't have sales in their job title.

At Zühlke, a global technology consultancy, it was engineers and technical consultants – not traditional sales reps – who needed a framework for turning customer conversations into business value.

Myles Davidson, Partner & Head of Sales, EMEA, FSI & Health at Zühlke, explains why SPIN Selling worked so well for a technical audience:

💬 "We realised we needed to train a much broader group – our engineers and consultants who work directly with customers. SPIN works exceptionally well for technical professionals, because they're naturally curious and ask the right questions. It gave our team a clear framework for those magic co-creation moments when we're solving business problems together with customers."

Technical experts are already asking questions all day. SPIN just gives that natural curiosity a commercial edge.

Read the full Zühlke case study (link in the comments) 👇

06/08/2026

AI can prep you for a negotiation, but it can't sit in the room for you.

It does in minutes what used to take days. It can help with market research, pricing benchmarks and scenario modelling – all genuinely useful.

But the negotiation itself is still determined by 6 very human things:

→ Uncovering interests AI can't ask about
→ Building trust through behaviour, not data
→ Creating value through judgement, not just options
→ Handling difficult conversations in real time
→ Influencing stakeholders with competing agendas
→ Knowing which information to use, when, and how

As access to information gets easier for everyone, the behaviours that turn information into agreement become the real differentiator.

Our latest blog breaks down where AI helps and where it simply can't.

Link in the comments🔗

Discover how AI enhances negotiation preparation while emphasising the vital human elements that lead to successful outcomes.

05/08/2026

Many sales training initiatives focus on individual capability, but the organisations seeing the greatest long-term impact are focusing on something bigger: creating a shared language.

When customer-facing teams approach conversations differently, consistency suffers, with customers receiving mixed experiences. It also means coaching becomes harder, and best practice is difficult to scale.

At Nihon Kohden, SPIN is becoming a shared language across commercial teams, helping create greater alignment and consistency in customer conversations.

That's often the difference between training being a singular event and becoming part of how an organisation approaches their commercial conversations.

What's been most effective in helping your organisation embed lasting changes in the way teams engage customers?