Business Advice
been a Chamber member for years, he’ s judged the BIBAs, delivered leadership and management training for them, and now I’ m a BIBAs judge too. I also work closely with my cousin Joel, a Lead Trainer at Sellology, and it’ s lovely to see the family’ s involvement continuing to grow. My youngest son, Jensen, took the photographs for this piece, bringing three generations of our family together in the business.
Q: What can businesses coming to the Sales Xchange actually expect to walk away with?
Leyla Jama: Clarity, above all. In sales, you can walk out of a great meeting with nothing to show for it, or walk out of a really difficult conversation with a deal. Therefore, how do you actually know, with confidence, whether you’ re doing a good job? At Sellology, we believe in giving people a framework, through our six-step influencing system, so they always know where they are in the process and what they’ re doing at each stage. Sales is about doing lots of things consistently well. Without a way to measure that, people start to doubt themselves, even with 25 years of experience like me. What people get from us is reassurance if they’ re already doing a lot right, and clarity if they’ re not sure what they’ re doing at all. Crucially, we build our framework around the people in the room: their role, their business, their language, their persona. So, they walk away able to implement it immediately using their bespoke Sellology playbook. Our phrase for it is“ training that sticks.” This leads to improved confidence, performance and results.
Q: Is there a misconception businesses have about sales training, something you find yourself correcting often?
Leyla Jama: Two, really. First, sales has a reputation for being a dirty word, associated with manipulation. What we teach is persuasion, and there’ s a real difference: manipulation is persuasion without ethics aka blagging. Persuasion gives someone honest information and respects their freedom to choose. We even have our own twist on the old sales phrase“ ABC, Always Be Closing”… we say“ ABC, Always Be Courteous”. There’ s never a reason to be rude to anyone during a sale, even though we believe in always getting a result. Second, when people hear that they are having sales training, they expect to be put through horrible role plays and
38 | Autumn 2026