On Thursday 27th November, together with sales leaders across the world and different industries, we returned once again to The London Stock Exchange for Global Sales Transformation XX. For this 20th GST event we chose the theme of Winning the Right Way: Human Connection in the Age of AI.
As the sales function and the world as a whole continues to undergo massive transformation thanks to the emergence of powerful new AI tools, we wanted to ask how salespeople can make the most of this cutting edge technology while still keeping the human touch.
We began the day by welcoming both new and familiar faces to a networking lunch, giving everyone a chance to discuss their own sales challenges and the packed day ahead.
We then headed through to the theatre, where Consalia's CEO Dr Phil Squire welcomed all our attendees and introduced the day's theme.
Normally this would be when Phil would hand off to our first speaker of the day, but this year the first speaker was him!
Phil was presenting the results of new research that revisits the work he conducted for his doctorate 15 years ago. At it's heart was a simple question: how do customers want to be sold to?
The Sales Mindsets emerged from the original research, and Phil wanted to see if developments in the world of sales and beyond had caused any changes in those essential mindsets today.
The new research project revealed plenty of insights, but perhaps most important of all is that the "Authenticity" mindset is shifting to "Intellectual Authenticity" as clients demand greater transparency around data sources and reasoning as more people rely on AI-generated content.
You can read the full white paper, "The State of Sales Mindsets", here.
Next onto the stage was Consalia's AI partner and event sponsor Aviso's CEO, Trevor Rodrigues-Templar. He discussed how "frankenstacks" of tech tools are hamstringing productivity for sales teams as they are forced to constantly switch between different interfaces of tools that, while individually powerful, don't form a coherent whole.
Trevor explained that he envisages a "no-app future" where salespeople interact with all their tools and data sources through a single AI interface, enabling users to get the most out of them with minimal disruption to their day.
Trevor was then joined by Aviso's CPO Ofer Zilberman and Fiona O'Brien, VP, Sales Transformation & Enablement at Lenovo to discuss Lenovo's ongoing AI transformation journey.
If you're interested in finding out more about how Consalia and Aviso can work together to power your AI sales transformation, including through our upcoming AI Sales Mindset Coach, click here to register your intertest.
Professor Julian Birkinshaw then joined us remotely, dialling in from a different London all the way over in Ontario, Canada!
Julian attempted to assuage some of the panic around AI, first by pointing out that legacy companies are actually better at adapting to major changes than they are sometimes given credit for. He also pointed out that, while individuals are seeing productivity gains through use of AI tools, there is limited evidence of organisation-level productivity improvements stemming from AI yet. Is this a limitation of current tools, or a sign that organisations are yet to fully integrate AI into their workflows? Time will tell!
We then stopped for quick coffee break to discuss the talks so far before heading back into the theatre for the second part of the day!
Jessica Guihard, Regional Head - Sales Development EMEA at SAP, kicked off the second session with her talk on "Hitting the Right Notes in Sales".
The session was based on research Jessica conducted for her master's, and centred around how effective leaders act in the same way a conductor does for an orchestra, getting teams to act in sync in a way that is greater than the sum of their parts.
Global Account Manager at event sponsors Introhive, Dr Ryan O'Sullivan returned to GST this year to speak about a "retention crisis" in sales.
With companies losing so many customers as soon as their initial contract is up, Ryan argued that there was a critical need to adopt a "framework for post-sale success": using AI to help identify key stakeholders and ensure that they are being delivered the value that was promised pre-sale.
If you'd like to this talk with Ryan, Phil, and other likeminded sales leaders you can sign up to our January breakfast briefing with Introhive here.
We then moved on to our annual panel session, which this time was made up of:
- Samantha George, Head of CRM Development and Deployment at Royal Mail;
- Samantha Wessels, President of EMEA at Box; and
- Gareth Abel, Former CMO at Circles Life, Samsung and Nextel
They provided three different lenses (sales leadership, sales operations, and customer) on the current state of sales transformation, as well as how they envisage the area changing in the near future.
As the day drew to a close Consalia's Academy Director Dr Louise Sutton took to the stage to deliver some updates on the incredible achievements that Consalia's Sales Business School has made over the past year.
If you're interested in getting some sales apprentices of your own, there are still a few spaces left on the February cohort for the Level 6 degree apprenticeship we run with Middlesex University. Click here request more information!
Finally we were joined by Alison Matthias, Managing Director at The Sales Professional Academy. Alison spoke about The Salespeople's Charity.
The charity was established in 1849 to support salespeople undergoing financial hardship, and continues to offer help to this day to salespeople and their families.
If you're interested in volunteering as a trustee, donating money, or simply finding out more about The Salespeople's Charity, you can do so on their website.
With that the twentieth Global Sales Transformation drew to a close, and we retired to the nearby Paternoster pub for networking drinks.
Thank you to everyone who attended, especially our incredible speakers, for making this event so special. We hope that you enjoyed yourselves and feel confident about "Winning the Right Way" as we go into 2026!
Hopefully we will see lots of you at GST XXI! Watch this space for more details.