Seven Colours Cloud
Sales and Marketing in a Buyer-Enabled World
We live in a buyer-enabled world where buyers see everything, compare everything, and ignore anything that feels like old-school sales or marketing.
​After decades in sales, marketing, and ABM, I realised that while sales and marketing have swapped responsibilities, our thinking hasn’t caught up. We keep optimising roles and processes, even though real decisions happen at the person level.
​
This work is grounded in practical experience of how buying decisions actually work in complex commercial environments.
​​​
Core Ideas
​
1. Every buying decision has three layers:
​
-
The Business — strategy, goals, change, risk, measurable impact.
-
The Role — KPIs, political pressures, functional responsibilities.
-
The Self — fears, motivations, personal wins, personal risks.
​
Most sales and marketing activity focuses on the first two, but the third, "Self", is where most decisions actually happen.
​
2. As the responsibilities of sales and marketing shift, there is a growing area that neither function truly owns. My work focuses on this gap; where sales and marketing activity meets real human decision-making under pressure.
​
Areas of Focus
​​
-
How do we reach senior and hidden decision-makers who block out 99% of communication and have fixed ideas anyway?
-
How do Business–Role–Self dynamics shape real decisions?
-
Why does content rarely influence?
-
Why do “value propositions” fall flat?
-
What do buyers actually fear, and how does that shape outcomes?
-
If sales, marketing, and ABM right now aren’t “it”, then what is?​
Buyer enablement isn’t optional anymore
Alongside senior commercial roles, I work selectively with organisations where practical judgement and experience are needed to support complex buying situations.
What people who know my work say
Jill Wiltfong. CMO. Korn Ferry
"...a remarkable ability to develop comprehensive and strategic solutions to complex challenges...He acts as the vital link that unifies the realms of marketing and business development".
Jason Young. Global Sales Director. Aress SaaS
"He has an impressive ability to take complex business strategy and simplify on the Sales Cloud and Pardot platforms. Implementing Salesforce throughout the organisation resulted in a completely new way manage sales, create demand and nurture leads. A pleasure to work with"
"Simon's energetic approach is wonderful, his sessions were highly engaging; they were structured to increase our team's capability and enthusiasm His practical advice led to several new opportunities, and I wholeheartedly recommend working with Simon".
Flooris van der Walt. Head Group Talent. Oerlikon
​"Simon is an excellent communicator. He has the ability to see what are the critical essences of personal and organisational challenges and provide clarity to focus on the highest impact areas. He can see the world from a client’s point of view and adds considerable knowledge of the leadership and talent industry to turn complex concepts into practical reality. I would have no hesitation in recommending Simon".