salespeople.co.uk editorial

67 pieces

• Signal31 July 2026

  The Companies House data trap: stale records cost UK B2B sales teams real pipeline

  Companies House data underpins most UK B2B prospecting tools (Cognism, Apollo, ZoomInfo, internal data warehouses). The data is authoritative for incorporation, registered office, accounts filing, and PSC. It is NOT authoritative for headcount, revenue, growth, or trading status; those are buyer-self-disclosed via filing extensions or never updated. Sales teams running prospecting against Companies House-derived data without understanding this distinction routinely target unqualified prospects.

• Signal30 July 2026

  PSC register checks are the cheapest UK sales due diligence most teams skip

  The Persons of Significant Control (PSC) register at Companies House discloses the ultimate beneficial owners of UK limited companies. For B2B sales targeting UK private companies, a PSC check is a 30-second sanity check that surfaces ownership concentration, recent ownership changes, and corporate-group structure. Most UK SaaS sales teams don't run it; the ones that do catch deal-blocking signals weeks before they would have surfaced via procurement.

• Snapshot29 July 2026

  The UK B2B outbound channel mix in 2026

  UK B2B outbound channel mix has shifted materially from 2022 to 2026: LinkedIn first, phone returning, cold email lower-volume but more personalised, direct mail seeing a small revival in enterprise. The relative effectiveness ranks have inverted from the 2022 hierarchy.

• Explained28 July 2026

  Account-based sales for UK mid-market: where it works and where it fails

  Account-based sales (ABS) was promoted heavily across UK SaaS through 2018-2023 as a structural answer to broad-volume outbound. By 2026 the picture is more nuanced: ABS works at specific deal sizes and team scales, fails predictably outside those, and many UK mid-market teams adopted it for the wrong reasons. A practitioner walkthrough.

• Explained27 July 2026

  ESG disclosure requirements and how they affect enterprise sales cycles in 2026

  UK enterprise buyers in 2026 increasingly run ESG due diligence on vendors as part of procurement: documented sustainability commitments, modern-slavery statement, supply-chain transparency, and (depending on the buyer) climate-disclosure alignment. The UK Sustainability Disclosure Standards regime has tightened the buyer-side disclosure obligations, which cascades down to vendor expectations.

• Explained26 July 2026

  Coaching frameworks for UK B2B sales: GROW, deal coaching, and the manager cadence

  Sales coaching, done well, is the highest-leverage activity a sales manager runs. Done poorly it's performative theatre that everyone resents. Three frameworks dominate UK B2B sales coaching practice in 2026: GROW (general-purpose coaching, derived from Whitmore's 1992 work), deal-coaching cadences (specific to the AE function), and call-review coaching (specific to recorded-call coaching). When each fits and how to combine.

• Explained25 July 2026

  The first 30 days as a new UK sales manager

  The first 30 days of a new sales-manager role establish the team's baseline expectations of how this manager will run their book. Done well, the first month produces a coaching cadence, a deal-review rhythm, and a forecast process that hold for 12-18 months. Done poorly, the first month produces a manager seen as performative or absent, and the team disengages.

• Explained24 July 2026

  Sales playbook design: when to write one, when not to, and the page-count trap

  Sales playbooks are routinely written and rarely used. The 90-page document everyone references at orientation and nobody opens after week 4 is the dominant pattern. A practitioner walkthrough of when a playbook is the right artefact, when something else is, and how to keep what you write below the page-count threshold where it stops being read.

• Insight23 July 2026

  The case for editorial-led job boards in UK B2B sales

  Job boards in UK B2B sales are dominated by vendor-led aggregators that monetise listing volume over listing quality. The result: high listing volumes, low candidate-to-fit conversion, recruiter-saturated fields, and broken trust on both sides. This Insight argues that editorial-led job boards - moderated by a publication with brand standards rather than by an aggregator chasing listing fees - are the structural fix.

• Insight22 July 2026

  UK SaaS sales is over-tooled, and what should come out of the stack

  The 2018-2024 UK SaaS sales tech stack accreted tooling at a rate that exceeded the value the tooling produced. Stacks of 12-20 tools at 100-300 person scale are common; per-tool usage rates of 20-40 percent are common; the per-tool cost compounds. This Insight argues for a structural rebalancing: most UK SaaS sales operations should be running 5-7 tools, not 12-20, and the tools that come out are predictable.

• Signal21 July 2026

  VAT on sales commission: the UK trap most sales operations teams forget

  Sales commission paid to a UK employee is taxed under PAYE - no VAT applies. Sales commission paid to a UK-registered self-employed sales contractor IS subject to VAT if the contractor is VAT-registered, and the commission becomes recoverable input VAT for the paying business. The treatment changes materially between employee and contractor structures, and sales operations teams routinely miss this when restructuring commission models.

• Snapshot20 July 2026

  Customer Success as a sales discipline in UK SaaS in 2026

  CS in UK SaaS in 2026 is shifting from a post-sale renewal function towards an active sales discipline. The shift reflects the maturity of the SaaS market: buyer-side procurement teams have hardened, churn risk has risen, and renewal isn't automatic. The CS function that survives 2026-2027 is the one that runs commercial discipline.

• Explained19 July 2026

  Equity in UK sales offers: what RSUs, options, EMI, and growth shares actually mean

  Equity in UK sales compensation packages takes several forms with materially different tax, vesting, and risk profiles. RSUs (mostly US-listed parents), unapproved share options (UK SMEs), EMI options (UK-incorporated startups under EMI scheme), and growth shares (sometimes used at growth stage). A practitioner walkthrough of what each is, what each costs, and what to negotiate.

• Explained18 July 2026

  Account expansion as a sales discipline in UK SaaS in 2026

  Net retention is the single most-watched SaaS metric for growth-stage and public companies, and yet account expansion sits in an organisational no-man's-land at most UK SaaS firms: too commercial for CS, too relationship-led for AE, structurally under-invested in. The case for treating expansion as its own sales discipline with dedicated headcount, comp design, and process.

• Signal17 July 2026

  BRC member procurement coordination is rewriting UK retail vendor selection

  British Retail Consortium member retailers are increasingly coordinating on vendor-selection criteria for back-of-house technology categories: ESG due diligence, modern slavery compliance, supply-chain resilience, and data-protection standards. The coordination raises the bar on vendor evidence requirements; vendors meeting one BRC member's standard increasingly satisfy several.

• Snapshot16 July 2026

  The UK retail SaaS sales motion in 2026

  Selling SaaS to UK retailers operates on retail-specific cycles: trading-calendar-driven, margin-pressure-shaped, and increasingly fragmented across digital and store-based motion. Cycle length, deal-size patterns, and the structural shift towards GMROI-tied commercial framing.

• Explained15 July 2026

  The UK retail buying centre: merchandising, store ops, IT, finance, ecommerce

  Selling B2B into UK retailers means navigating a buying centre that's wider and more functionally distributed than typical SaaS-to-SaaS deals. Merchandising, store operations, IT, finance, and ecommerce each have legitimate veto rights on different categories of vendor purchase. A practitioner walkthrough of who owns what, who decides what, and how to sequence the conversation.

• Explained14 July 2026

  Selling B2B into UK retail: the Q4 freeze and the seasonal procurement calendar

  UK retailers operate on a procurement calendar driven by trading seasons, not by the buyer's fiscal year. The 'peak trading' window roughly covering November through January is a code freeze for any operational change; the 'post-peak review' window in February through April is when most B2B procurement decisions get made. Vendors who don't read the calendar lose 6 months on every deal that hits the freeze.

• Insight13 July 2026

  The end of the SDR factory: how UK B2B outbound is reorganising

  The 2018-2024 UK SaaS playbook scaled SDR factories: 30, 50, 80 SDRs running high-volume cadences against pre-built lists, paired loosely with AEs. By 2026 most UK SaaS teams over 100 staff have either dismantled the factory or are dismantling it. This Insight argues the SDR-factory model is structurally obsolete, walks through the four reasons, and describes the converging replacement organisational shape.

• Insight12 July 2026

  The structural shift in UK B2B outbound, 2022 to 2026

  UK B2B outbound has changed permanently between 2022 and 2026. The volume-cadence playbook that defined the era is structurally broken: deliverability tightening, buyer fatigue, and PECR/CTPS enforcement have ended its economics. The replacement motion is converging across UK SaaS but is being adopted unevenly. This Insight makes the case that the shift is permanent, not cyclical, and that teams clinging to the old playbook face deteriorating economics for as long as they hold on.

• Explained21 June 2026

  Information security workstream in UK SaaS pre-sales in 2026

  Enterprise buyers run security review in parallel with commercial evaluation, not after it. What enterprise buyers actually run, why this falls to SE, three artefacts strong programmes maintain, and the most common gap.

• Explained20 June 2026

  Building a reusable demo library for UK SaaS sales engineering

  60-80 percent of SE time goes to demo prep rather than discovery or POC scoping. A demo library has three layers (scenarios, pre-built environments, assets), three build patterns, and pays back 0.4-0.8 of an FTE per SE seat in recovered capacity.

• Explained19 June 2026

  The Sales Engineer's discovery contribution in UK SaaS in 2026

  The 2022-vintage SE was a 'demo specialist' joining the second meeting. The 2026 SE owns half of discovery from meeting one. Three threads (technical context, demo design, technical viability) and where SE programmes under-invest.

• Signal18 June 2026

  No-decision is the largest UK B2B SaaS loss category in 2026

  Teams that disaggregate no-decision typically find it accounts for 30-50 percent of total losses by deal count, materially exceeding competitive losses and budget losses.

• Explained17 June 2026

  Attacking no-decision losses with critical-event discovery

  Surfacing existing critical events. When no critical event exists: accept long-term pipeline or help the buyer build one. Why manufactured deadlines fail and the forecast hygiene that follows.

• Explained16 June 2026

  Why no-decision is the real losing competitor in UK B2B SaaS

  No-decision is consistently the largest single loss category - 30-50 percent of total losses by deal count, materially exceeding competitive losses. Three patterns and why no-decision warning signs get missed.

• Snapshot15 June 2026

  Pricing transparency in UK SaaS in 2026

  Mid-market increasingly publishes; enterprise mostly doesn't. The middle band (15-50k pounds ARR) is contested. The growing pattern: indicative pricing or pricing range with explicit message that final pricing depends on specifics.

• Explained14 June 2026

  How to handle the 'send me pricing' email

  The most-received-and-most-fumbled email in UK SaaS sales. The 5-8 sentence response that addresses all three signals (cost question, value gap, share-internally need), three patterns that fail predictably, and when call-first responses are honest.

• Explained13 June 2026

  When to lead with price and when to lead with value

  Both extremes fail in specific buyer contexts. Value-first works on long-cycle, novel-category deals; price-first works on short-cycle, known-category deals. The hybrid (discover, soft-anchor, value, specific pricing) is what most strong UK SaaS AEs run.

• Snapshot12 June 2026

  The UK SaaS conversation intelligence vendor landscape in 2026

  Gong, Chorus (Zoominfo), Clari Copilot, plus AI-native entrants. Strengths and friction points of each. Selection guide by AE-seat scale.

• Explained11 June 2026

  Operational discipline for using sales call recordings

  Three review patterns (AE self-review, manager review with annotation, peer review on specific moments). Tiered access vs open access. Retention defaults of 12-24 months. Redaction strategy when erasure is requested. The Subject Access Request workflow.

• Explained10 June 2026

  Recording discovery calls in the UK: the legal framework

  UK law on sales call recording: notice-not-consent under the Investigatory Powers Act, lawful basis under UK GDPR (legitimate interest), what your privacy notice must disclose, and special cases (covert recording, cross-border calls, consumer calls, subject access requests).

• Snapshot9 June 2026

  Reference compensation patterns in UK SaaS in 2026

  Three patterns: no formal compensation, access-based benefits, honorarium per call. Tradeoffs of each. The pattern that scales cleanest at 100-500 person scale is access-based benefits with optional charity donation as an alternative.

• Explained8 June 2026

  When references close deals and when they don't

  References work in specific buyer conditions and are noise outside them. Five conditions where references close deals and four where they don't.

• Explained7 June 2026

  Designing a customer reference programme

  Customer references are the highest-leverage closing artefact in UK B2B SaaS. A programme design guide: the reference pool, the request process, the governance layer, compensation patterns, the closing-artefact effect, and what goes wrong without governance.

• Snapshot6 June 2026

  Internal vs external win/loss interviewing - the tradeoffs

  Internal interviewers cost less and bring product context but produce systematically more polite loss interviews. External agencies cost £400-1,200 per interview and produce materially more honest loss interviews. The hybrid model dominates UK SaaS in 2026.

• Explained5 June 2026

  Three questions every closed-lost interview should ask

  Three questions that triangulate the structural reason a deal was lost: timeline reconstruction, criteria evolution, counter-factual. Why these three; what each surfaces; common UK SaaS answers.

• Explained4 June 2026

  How to run a win/loss interview programme in UK SaaS

  A win/loss interview programme is the most reliable signal on positioning, sales execution, and product fit available to UK SaaS GTM teams. A programme design guide: who interviews, what to ask, volume and cadence, what to do with the output, and what it costs.

• Snapshot3 June 2026

  The 2026 UK SaaS sales tech stack

  The 'core seven' across most UK SaaS teams at 50-300 person scale: CRM, sales engagement, conversation intelligence, forecasting, prospecting data, comp operationalisation, document collaboration. Common additions and the 5-20 percent of total sales operating cost typical for the stack.

• Explained2 June 2026

  When to keep, replace, or rip out a sales tool

  The 2x2 of usage and outcome lift, modulated by workflow integration and switching cost. Walkthrough of the four quadrants, plus the switching-cost overlay that's most often under-estimated in stack audits.

• Explained1 June 2026

  A framework for evaluating sales tech stack ROI in UK SaaS

  A UK SaaS sales tech stack of 8-12 tools at 50-300 person scale is normal in 2026. Two years after the buying decision, half are paid-for and under-used. A four-metric framework (active usage, workflow integration, outcome lift, switching cost) plus the keep / replace / cut decision.

• Snapshot31 May 2026

  Weekly deal-walkthrough cadence in UK SaaS in 2026

  Three rhythms at 50-300 person scale: Friday-afternoon whole-team, mid-week pod, asynchronous video. The cadence trap is monthly walkthroughs - they degrade into showing-up theatre. Time investment per AE per week: 1-2 hours.

• Explained30 May 2026

  The closed-won walkthrough vs the closed-lost walkthrough

  Both serve different coaching purposes and follow different structures. Running both with the same template flattens the most useful insights. Specific prompt sequences for each, plus the two structural traps.

• Explained29 May 2026

  How to run a deal walkthrough that produces coaching value

  The deal walkthrough is the highest-yield coaching format in UK B2B sales and the format most often run badly. A practitioner format guide: the six-section structure, the manager and peer roles, weekly cadence, and three legitimate reasons to skip a week.

• Snapshot28 May 2026

  Inbound qualification team structure in UK SaaS in 2026

  Three patterns at 50-300 person scale: dedicated inbound SDR pod, AE-direct at high intent, marketing-ops triage. Each fits a different volume and AE-seniority profile. Hire for fast-conversion comfort; pay against AE-accepted-pipeline, not meetings-booked.

• Explained27 May 2026

  Where MEDDIC fails on inbound deals - and what to do instead

  MEDDIC works on outbound deals because the AE has done the upstream qualification work. It works less well on inbound because the AE inherits a lead with no upstream context. Three places inbound-MEDDIC fails predictably: champion identification, critical event surfacing, and decision process discovery.

• Explained26 May 2026

  BANT-lite for inbound qualification: the structure that holds up

  Inbound qualification has a structural problem: the lead self-identified, so the temptation is to treat attention as the gate and pass to AE. The result is meeting volumes that look good and conversion rates that quietly collapse. BANT-lite is the SDR-side filter that holds up - four short questions, fast enough not to lose the lead.

• Signal25 May 2026

  The Slack-as-CRM problem in growth-stage UK SaaS - why it's a structural risk

  Growth-stage UK SaaS sales teams routinely use Slack as an informal CRM: deal updates in #pipeline, forecast commits as emojis, lost-deal post-mortems as long-form threads. The pattern is everywhere at 50-300 person scale. Three failure modes (signal loss, accountability drift, manager-overhead amplification) make it a structural risk, not a quirk.

• Signal24 May 2026

  UK B2B outbound conversion rates have dropped materially from their 2022 peak

  Three structural reasons: email deliverability tightening (2024-2025), buyer fatigue at 50-80 cold emails per week, and PECR/CTPS enforcement raising compliance costs. Teams that responded by cutting volume and increasing per-prospect investment are reporting flat-to-up meeting volumes; teams that responded by adding more volume are reporting deteriorating results.

• Snapshot23 May 2026

  The Sales Development Rep role in UK SaaS in 2026

  The SDR role in UK SaaS in 2026 has changed materially from 2022. Volume games have stopped working; the metric is shifting from meetings-booked to qualified-pipeline-passed; AI-assisted prospect research is baseline. Comp pattern, hiring criteria, and the 18-24 month SDR-to-AE promotion timing.

• Snapshot22 May 2026

  The Account Executive role in UK SaaS in 2026

  The AE role in UK SaaS in 2026 has narrowed from the 2020-vintage 'full-funnel' position. Discovery has moved up the funnel, procurement workstream is structurally part of the role, and forecasting credibility is the single most-watched manager metric. Comp pattern, traits recruiters screen on, and where the role is going.

• Explained21 May 2026

  UK enterprise procurement patterns for SaaS sales in 2026

  UK enterprise procurement is the most-underestimated workstream in B2B SaaS sales. Sales cycles that look 90 days from a commercial perspective routinely run 150-200 days because procurement, legal, and information security gates run in series. A practitioner walkthrough of the five gates, total elapsed time, what to do early, and four patterns that derail deals at the last minute.

• Explained20 May 2026

  Outbound sequence design that actually works in UK B2B in 2026

  The 2022-vintage 14-touch high-volume cadence has stopped working. Email deliverability tightening, buyer fatigue, and PECR enforcement have made it net-negative for most UK SaaS teams. The strongest UK B2B outbound in 2026 is 5-7 touches over 14-21 days, multi-channel, with one or two touches genuinely personalised. A practitioner walkthrough plus the compliance considerations.

• Explained19 May 2026

  The first 30, 60, and 90 days as a new AE in UK SaaS

  The first 90 days of a new AE in UK SaaS sets the trajectory for the next 18 months. A standard 30-60-90 plan structure that works for IC AE roles at 50-300 person SaaS, what managers most often get wrong (passive onboarding, no deal-walkthrough requirement, late forecast-credibility assessment), and what AEs most often get wrong (over-investment in product, under-investment in role-play).

• Explained18 May 2026

  Compensation plan design principles for UK SaaS in 2026

  A sales comp plan is the single most-read document in any sales organisation. A plan that pays for the outcomes the company actually cares about gets you a sales force that delivers those outcomes; a plan that doesn't gets you what the plan does pay for. Five principles plus the leaver-and-clawback wording that survives UK case-law scrutiny.

• Explained17 May 2026

  Quota design: top-down vs bottom-up methodologies in UK SaaS

  Quota design is the most political exercise in a UK SaaS sales operation. Done well it lines up rep incentive with company target. Done poorly it produces sandbagging, demotivation, and a 12-month argument every January. A practitioner walkthrough of top-down and bottom-up methodologies, the reconciliation, and two patterns that fail predictably.

• Signal16 May 2026

  The MQL / SQL taxonomy is dating: UK B2B teams are moving to field-defined pipeline stages

  MQL and SQL were the dominant pipeline-stage vocabulary in UK B2B SaaS for over a decade. In 2026 they are increasingly seen as a dated framing. Three reasons (marketing-side definition, buyer self-qualification, multi-touch attribution) and what's replacing them.

• Snapshot15 May 2026

  RevOps as a function in UK SaaS in 2026

  Revenue Operations owns the systems, data, and process the go-to-market organisation runs on: CRM, sales tech stack, comp operationalisation, forecasting, territory design, and GTM analytics. Three common org shapes in 2026 (Finance / Sales / standalone) plus the comp pattern and three traits the strongest UK RevOps hires share.

• Explained14 May 2026

  Discovery question patterns that actually qualify in UK B2B sales

  Discovery is the single biggest determinant of whether a UK B2B sale closes, and most teams systematically under-invest in it. Three structures dominate: SPIN (Rackham 1988), the Decision Process Map (MEDDPICC's D), and hypothesis-led discovery. They are not interchangeable; the strongest AEs blend them.

• Explained13 May 2026

  Designing a sales hiring scorecard for UK B2B in 2026

  Without a hiring scorecard, sales hiring is pattern-matching to last week's conversations. With one, it becomes audit-able and meaningfully better at predicting first-year quota attainment. A practitioner walkthrough of the five sections, the deal-walkthrough round (the highest-signal interview), and four UK-specific gotchas.

• Explained12 May 2026

  Cold email under PECR regulation 22: what UK B2B teams can and cannot send

  Regulation 22 of PECR governs UK B2B email outreach. The corporate-subscriber exemption makes most B2B cold email lawful under PECR, but UK GDPR still engages on every named individual recipient. Sole traders and unincorporated partnerships outside Scotland are individual subscribers and require prior consent. Four common failure modes plus a pre-send checklist.

• Explained11 May 2026

  Pipeline coverage and what 3x actually buys you

  'You need 3x pipeline coverage' is the most-repeated heuristic in UK B2B sales. It works under specific assumptions and fails predictably when those assumptions don't hold. A practitioner walkthrough of the math, when 3x is the wrong target, and how to compute the coverage ratio your team actually needs from two quarters of historical data.

• Explained1 May 2026

  PECR for UK outbound sales in 2026: what you can and cannot do

  A practitioner's guide to the four UK rule sources that govern B2B outbound calling and email in 2026, what changed under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and the trap rules sales operations teams keep getting fined for.

• Signal30 April 2026

  ICO refreshed direct-marketing guidance due spring 2026: what UK sales leaders should expect

  The ICO has signalled that updated direct-marketing and PECR guidance, reflecting the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and recent enforcement, is due in spring 2026. Sales operations teams running UK outbound programmes should plan a compliance review against the refreshed text within 60 days of publication.

• Signal29 April 2026

  DUAA stage three lands: legitimate interest is now a recognised lawful basis for direct marketing

  Stage three of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 commenced through late 2025 and early 2026, formally establishing direct marketing as a 'recognised legitimate interest' under UK GDPR. The change reduces the documentation burden for B2B prospect lists; it does not amend PECR.

• Signal22 April 2026

  ICO penalty: broker-collected consent does not protect the calling organisation

  A UK compensation company was fined 90,000 pounds by the ICO in March 2025 for 95,277 automated marketing calls. The consent the company relied on had been collected by a third-party data supplier whose consent statement did not name the calling organisation. The 'we bought the list, the broker had consent' defence has now been formally rejected.

• Signal15 April 2026

  ICO fines Birmingham firm 100,000 pounds for TPS-registered calls

  In March 2026 the ICO fined TMAC Ltd, a Birmingham pendant-alarm company, 100,000 pounds for making more than 260,000 unsolicited marketing calls to numbers on the Telephone Preference Service register between February and September 2024. The action confirms TPS screening remains the single most enforced PECR breach pattern.