For decades, corporate group travel for recognition purposes was almost exclusively for top-selling sales reps. The President's Club model had straightforward qualifying metrics and an easily measured ROI: "Did we bring in more revenue?"

C-suite executives who make the decisions about incentive travel programs these days are broadening their campaigns' scope, with an understanding that everyone contributes to revenue growth. The qualifying goals include softer metrics, and the programs themselves must be more than a round of golf and a gala dinner at a beach resort.

Our feature story on the new era of incentive travel has been turned into an audio discussion using Google's AI-driven NotebookLM software.

Corporate gifts are a critical component of companies' employee engagement strategy and customer loyalty efforts. Some use corporate gifts to build stronger relationships with channel partners.

It's a $300 billion industry in the U.S. alone. But Tom Romine, founder of Cultivate, a corporate gifting services provider, said many companies continue to make mistakes in gifting that have been made for decades.

For starters, enough with the branded swag. That may have a place in your marketing strategy, but not as gifts. And measuring a return on investment? Romine says getting hung up on ROI distracts companies from the real value of corporate gifting.

Russ Hill was promoted to mid-management early in his radio broadcasting career. He floundered and was nearly fired without ever being told how to convey the company's priorities to his team.

He has incorporated the lessons learned from that experience into the Lead In 30 leadership development program he offers through his company, Lone Rock Leadership.

In this podcast, Hill explains three key things that Lone Rock research has uncovered that companies who develop strong leaders do well. Hill's partner, Jared Jones, presented a webinar on the same topic for SMM Connect.

There has been a lot of talk about sales enablement in the past several years. "Sales enablement specialist" is one of the fastest-growing job titles on LinkedIn.

But what is it, exactly?

The truth is it's different things for different people. In this episode, we talk with Deniz Olcay, vice president of marketing at Allego, about the emergence of sales enablement and how companies can maximize their investment in sales enablement technology.

Our interview with Olcay is part of a larger report on sales enablement that we published in January. And Olcay mentions an Allego report on sales enablement technology that you can download here.

In 2025, data intelligence has moved from being a competitive advantage to an operational necessity. Amit Patel, senior vice president at IT consulting firm Consulting Solutions, says those companies that make the most of data intelligence will create customer experiences that win business, open the door to upselling, and create the type of true partnerships that drive customer loyalty.

Can you identify how you like to be shown appreciation in the workplace? Do you know your colleagues' preferences? In our continuing discussion with Paul White, we explore why it's important to understand your own primary and secondary language of appreciation. Also, in the interest of promoting peer-to-peer appreciation, it helps to spread the word on everyone's preferences for appreciation.

As White says, "Not only do you want to hit the target, you don't want to step in the mud and make a mistake unintentionally by doing something the person doesn't want."

In our continuing conversation with Paul White, author of "The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace," we discuss why praise is such a powerful motivator. Words of affirmation is the top language of appreciation for nearly half of all workers. White explains why praising colleagues is not as simple or intuitive as it may seem, and why words of affirmation can't just flow from managers to subordinates.

You may have heard of, or even read, Gary Chapman's "The 5 Love Languages." Paul White, a psychologist whose work focuses on workplace engagement and building better work relationships, thought Chapman's five love languages could be adapted to the workplace to create healthier, more product work environments.

In 2011, he and Chapman published "The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace." It has sold more than 600,000 copies.

Employees who feel appreciated are more engaged, more productive and more likely to stay with a company. But appreciation has to be authentic.

This podcast is the first of a series of discussions with White. We review the five languages of appreciation and ask White if, more than a decade since his book was published, more business leaders understand the importance of letting their workers know how much they are appreciated.

We were putting together a Focus Report on rebounding from a slow sales period and Michael Hinkle held up his hand as someone who has been through it and who now helps other companies break sales slumps.

Hinkle, like a lot of salespeople, didn't intend to go into sales. After 30-plus years of selling, he founded his California-based sales consulting and coaching business, JBI (Just Buy In).

In this podcast, we talk about how he helps client companies reverse sagging sales, why mindset is so critical to performance, and how an entrepreneurial approach can bring clarity to selling.

B2B buyers have changed dramatically over the past few years, so why haven't B2B salespeople?

Julie Thomas, President and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, says product-led sales no longer works in an era of self-educated buying teams. It's all about bringing value to prospects and making sure they understand your value. But they can't understand your value unless you - or your reps - do.

How you sell is just as important what you sell.

Gartner Director Analyst Adnan Zijadic discusses his report "How Generative AI Will Revolutionize Sales Force Automated Platforms." What does it mean for B2B sales leaders? What steps need to be taken to keep up with this headline-making technology?

In this podcast, we talk with Julie Thomas, president and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, which recently published an eBook on a study they completed called "The Behaviors and Skills Sales Leaders Care Most About - and How to Measure Them."

Art Fromm started as an engineer and implementer of software applications before he became a sales professional and sales manager. Building on that experience, for the past 25 years he been in sales enablement roles, including starting his own company, Team Sales Development, in 2009, helping clients increase win rate, margins, revenues and client satisfaction. He helps presales and sales teams establish value and sell complex solutions from software to IT to telecoms to supply chain.

In this episode, he discusses his SEAMless Sales process, which aligns pre-sales personnel with sales teams by breaking down silos, establishing clear communication, and focusing relentlessly on client success from the first interaction.

The future of B2B sales is one that is coordinated, client-centric and driven by teamwork. If your sales and pre-sales teams aren’t aligned, you’re leaving revenue on the table.

Fromm is presenting a complimentary one-hour webinar on his SEAMless Sales process for Sales & Marketing Management's webinar division, SMM Connect. The webinar is scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern on July 10. Learn more and register to attend here.

Sales trainer Amy Franko shares highlights from a webinar she presented for SMM Connect on the most important metrics for sales managers to monitor. She talks about how she goes to market and how companies can be smarter buyers of sales training.

Stephanie Harris is a veteran of the non-cash incentive industry and, for the last three years, president of the Incentive Research Foundation. We spoke with her about emerging trends in group incentive travel, including designing events for today's multigenerational work force.

Doug Bushée, an analyst at Gartner Sales Practice, explains what we're talking about when we talk about digital sales transformation - and he reviews three common pitfalls to avoid, which he wrote about for Sales & Marketing Management.

Michael Bungay Stanier is an author, speaker and entrepreneur with a background in leadership development.  His latest book is "How to Work With (Almost) Anyone: Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships."

Collaboration is what workplaces are all about, yet work relationships are usually left to chance. Bungay Stanier offers insights on why it makes sense to have admittedly awkward conversations about how you will work together before discussing what work you will do.

Collin Coggins and Garrett Brown set out to research and write about the commonalities between the world’s greatest sellers. They discovered that authenticity and what they call “intentional ignorance” are key traits among those who sell best.

In our conversation, they explain why successful selling isn’t about swagger and a know-it-all attitude. Instead, it’s vital to develop a partnership with prospective buyers in order to eliminate the “us vs. them” mentality.

What level of spending is required to get employees excited about a non-cash recognition offer? The Incentive Research Foundation conducted extensive surveys to find out.

It turns out effective reward values are dependent on multiple factors, including employee role and salary. And reward value isn't the only determinant of success with a recognition program.

We Used Google NotebookLM to have our favorite two bots talk about the interesting findings from this research. 

We used Google's AI-driven NotebookLM to create this conversation about the importance of recognition in the workplace and how it's only impactful if a company first establishes an environment in which employees feel they matter.

Rewards beyond a paycheck or cash bonus are essential to increasing employee engagement. However, missteps in such an endeavor can be worse than doing nothing at all.

Marc Matthews makes memories for a living. The founder and CEO of Pulse Experiential Travel creates incentive travel experiences for reward recipients - as few as one or as many as several hundred.

There's almost no event Matthews can't gain entree to. Did you know you can reward your star performers by getting them into Elton John's Oscars viewing party?

In this episode, Matthews shares how he created his career of more than 40 years almost by accident. He provides insights on incentive travel trends, and you'll learn what his favorite experiences have been. (One involves yacht parties and fast cars.)

"Always remember," states James Chitwood in his book Leadership Is Not Enough, "the adage says when things go wrong, it's because of the leader, but when things go right, it's usually because of the team."

In this podcast conversation, Chitwood explains why a true performance culture continues to do what it does whether or not the leader is there.

Chitwood, a former Army infantryman and an accomplished turnaround consultant, says companies continue to overinvest in leaders, even though their tenure is usually short relatively speaking.

You'll also learn more about the four pillars of his TRAC model for creating a performance culture - Training, Recognition, Accountability and Communication.

Our conversation with Chitwood is the culmination of a series of podcast discussions about developing leaders, all completed for our Focus Report on leadership.

Sabina Nawaz is a former Microsoft manager who advises C-level executives and leaders at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and academic institutions.

Her new (and first) book is titled, "You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need)." It's an executive coach in book form.

In this podcast episode, we discuss some of the key points from the book, including common traps for new managers; how to deal with power gaps between managers and their team members; and getting honest feedback from the people you manage.

We used NotebookLM, an AI-powered collaboration tool that creates audio summaries, to cull the highlights of our Focus Report feature on the leadership style of Donald Trump.

Don’t want to wade through the 3,300-word article? This 18-minute podcast-style conversation between two bots covers the most important points. 

Britt Yamamoto is a leadership consultant, entrepreneur and professor at the University of Washington's Department of Global Health.

In this podcast conversation, he discusses some of the lessons he learned working on a sustainable farm in the Japan countryside that can be applied to leadership roles in business and in life. It's the subject of his book, "The Soil of Leadership: Cultivating the Conditions for Transformation."