Talking Business with PETER SWITZER

This is an exerpt of the QANTAS INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT, SEPTEMBER 2005.

It part of the series Talking Business with PETER SWITZER radio.

You can download the original PDF file from the Qantas Website

Introduction

Sue Barrett is the founder of Barrett Consulting, an organisation that has helped over one hundred high-profi le companies master the necessary tools to understand what it takes to achieve real and sustainable sales performance.

The Interview

PS Next on Talking Business we'll be talking with Sue Barrett whose organisation, Barrett Consulting, has helped over one hundred high-profi le companies master the necessary tools to understand what it takes to achieve real and sustainable sales performance. Barrett Consulting has been in business for ten years now and in that time has won both the Telstra and the Victorian Government small business awards. In 2000 Sue was also inducted into the Business Women's Hall of Fame. Welcome to Talking Business, Sue.

SB Thank you, Peter.

PS Barrett Consulting sounds very very influential and a big organisation. What is Barrett Consulting?

SB It's not a big organisation - it has some big ideas, though, and I suppose the last ten years we've been really a selffunded research project in trying to deconstruct and understand what affect sales performance has for organisations.

PS So, what's your background?

SB I'm a pharmacologist/immunologist by university qualifications but I never actually practiced in that. My fi rst proper job was as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry.

PS Was it a tough industry to be a sales rep in?

SB I was the youngest at the time. I was 21 when I got the briefcase and the company car and I didn't know any different. I found it challenging for myself because you couldn't get direct sales results, because you are obviously influencing doctors at the same time. I learnt a lot of good things there and I learnt some things that weren't so good, too.

PS Well, the sales industry is really tough, Sue, isn't it? There are people who use unusual and maybe "not preferred" practices and then there are others who are unbelievably motivated. One thing I've noticed about sales people is that they do a lot of training, or the smart companies do a lot of training, don't they? Why is that necessary? Why do they need more training than most people?

SB Well, first of all, in reference to the comments you made before, the problem with a lot of sales training out there… first of all, the problem with sales is that over 90 percent of sales people follow no logical process when selling.

PS Don't they?

SB Most of them are fl ying by the seat of their pants and then the training that they have been given in the past, and still sometimes today, is really around tricks and secrets to success in sales, but there are none. And that's why we've spent so much time in understanding what good effective sales performance is, by really deconstructing it and looking at it as an effective communication process.

PS So, you're saying all those books out there that we see and the business shelves with the, you know, "ten ways to be a successful seller" and all that sort of stuff, a lot of that is really gild the lily?

SB There's a lot of stuff that's "gild the lily", and you have to wade through the things that are actually working and effective. I mean, to be a good sales person or an elite sales person is like being an elite sports person. There is structure, there is process, there is skill, and you have to practice at that. That's why being effective really at anything, but particularly at sales is being able to actually go through and really make sure you've got the foundations in place to continue to evolve and develop as a sales person.

PS Okay. Well, before we start talking about what you found when you did all this deconstructing, you have used references to sporting people and training hard and whatever. I guess you must have your idols as well. All sporting people have people that they look up to, people who are the benchmark performers. Are there those sorts of people in sales that you can point to?

SB No.

PS Unbelievable! So there's none of these great American guru sales people, like Zig Ziglar was a famous educator of sales people, wasn't he, in the old days?

SB To a degree but in many of those cases, they're asking you to be like them and we're not them, we're us, we're ourselves. So, it's actually being able to identify and unlock and access your potential for elite performance in anything. We try to help people gain a great insight and awareness into themselves.

PS So, in a sense, you're advocating to tap into your individualism in developing your sales battery of weapons?

SB We'd really call it "tools" but, yes, there you go. The thing is that when you're looking at a business, it has a strategy it has to translate into action. So, where it starts is by understanding if you're looking at the sales function of the business, what type of sales approach do we need for our business to perform well? And when you look at that then you've got to say "okay, currently we have a team of sales people and how fi t are they to deliver that strategy?" Now, market conditions could have changed, competitors could have changed, things may have moved from being a very high tech, you know, highly valued knowledge base to a commodity. For example, the computer industry is a classic example where a lot of people in the past were highly paid for their technical knowledge but many of us as consumers, be it business or personal, have really risen in education around computers so that currency, that eliteness, if you like, of knowledge has now become mainstream, and so a lot of those people can't command the salaries that they had in the past. That's an example of how industries or sales markets can change depending what market you're in. So, as a person, you've got to continue to be looking at "where's my market? what's it doing? what do I have to do to evolve?" The biggest thing that we've seen is that top performing sales people are excellent problem identifiers and solvers so they do a lot more listening than they do speaking, and they do a lot more understanding of where you're at and helping you make an informed decision about what it is to solve your problem with their appropriate products or services.

PS We're talking to Sue Barrett from Barrett Consulting and we're talking about, I guess, being good at sales. This deconstruction - tell us about what was involved in that process?

SB Okay. It was looking at what clients were really after. It's not about just selling product. A product does nothing or a service does nothing until it's actually done in the context of a situation that a client has. So, what problems do clients have? What issues do they need resolved and are you in a position to be able to do that in an ethical and professional manner? Whether it's buying jocks and socks or it's actually dealing with a high tech service delivery, be it an integrated CRM system or something like that, you really have to be able to find out what your target market is and then start to look at how do I solve problems. And if you look at the evolving competencies of what elite performance is about in sales, it's really not just selling a product but also looking beyond that, looking strategically at where that relationship can go. Is it a longitudinal relationship built on value? Am I able to sit there as a person and really help you develop what it is, what you need to develop, so you can succeed at your business? So, if you look at that - and also to be able to harness resources internally - so, not just going out there and promising anything because if the business then can't deliver what was promised then you're going to create problems for retention in the future.

PS That's the point I was going to get to, Sue. What happens when in analysing the product you're selling, you realise it's not really as good as the sales brochures says it is? Now, I'm thinking here, I'm selling home loans from a bank - and we know that banking home loan products are not the greatest, there's usually cheaper ones out there if you really go looking hard for it. How do you tell the truth? How do you really get around the truth issue and just focus on the good parts of your product? I guess that's all you can really do.

SB Well, I suppose there's always a market for a range of things. People seem to focus on it's price but it's not always price. For example, some people may be prepared to pay a little more…

PS …I'm thinking spin doctors here, Sue, but you're doing a fantastic job, I'm with you all the way with this baby, keep going… [laughter].

SB [laughter] At the end of the day, none of us likes to be tricked or duped, and if we find out you promised this but we didn't get that then my perception of value versus what I paid for it is far less, so, I'm not going to be particularly happy and I'm probably not going to come back to you.

PS And is it better for that sort of person to say "look, there are lower interest rate loans in the product market but we're going to do other things for you and that's why we're a little bit dearer, but we're a better product"?

SB If you're dearer, it's finding out what it is that the person values. And for people who are very busy, they may not have time to schlep about talking to all sorts of people, and you may be able to - as a mortgage broker, for example - to provide that service, keep them up-to-date with what's going on. It might cost slightly more but then you can actually see the value in that. I mean, I don't get this thing about petrol prices when there's two cents a litre lower somewhere and people spend half an hour driving to get the two cents a litre lower and then sit in the queue with their engines on, burning up all the savings they're going to make! I mean, it's not just price. So, it's about what you value and if you're time poor, you may be able to pay for someone to help you get what you need at a slightly higher price.

PS Is there a place if people want to learn about what you're talking about today? Is there a website that people can go to? Is there a book that you'd like to say "this has had a big impact on me"? I don't know, is there a Sue Barrett book?

SB Yes. We're in the process of developing that, and for our tenth birthday we actually produced a little coffee-table book. So, we do have a book available but we also have in the process a whole range of things we're producing over the next twelve to 18 months which we want to make accessible and available. Little handy help guides and things like that - how to keep fit in sales, basically.

PS Okay. What's the website?

SB www.barrett.com.au

PS Sue, thanks for joining us on Talking Business.

SB Thanks, Peter.