Barrett Sales Blog - Helping people and businesses to sell better

Why Deals Stall More Than They’re Lost

By Sue Barrett / 04/09/2026 / Buying, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Key Account Management, Procurement

In 30 seconds

The Problem: complex B2B deals in Australia are taking longer to close while the global average is speeding up, and the usual reflex, blaming competitors, doesn’t fit the data.

The Shift: most of these deals aren’t lost, they stall, often because a buying committee can’t agree, feels personally exposed by the decision, or is caught on procedural or budget friction that looks like hesitation from the outside.

The Solution: removing ambiguity, through tools like a shared Mutual Action Plan, helps a nervous committee reach a clear yes or no, though it works best offered as support rather than pressure, and it won’t fix a genuine budget shortfall or a competitor actively feeding a buyer’s doubts.

Why Deals Stall More Than They’re Lost Read Post »

The Buyer’s Trap: Why Asking AI for “Top Sales Trainers” Gets You the Wrong Answer

By Sue Barrett / 28/08/2026 / Business Acumen, Learning and Development, Sales Research, Sales Training

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Asking AI for “top sales trainers” returns a popularity leaderboard, fame and visibility ranked as if they were evidence of results. This happens because product-category questions can only ever surface product-category data.

The Shift: The fix is not a smarter AI, it is a better-framed question. Buyers who describe the actual business outcome they need, and the real capability gap underneath it, get fundamentally different, more useful search results than buyers who search for the product itself.

The Solution: A real example: a brief describing a scaling investment firm’s need to build listening and questioning skills across a technically strong team, framed around business outcome rather than “sales training,” surfaced an entirely different, more relevant shortlist. Discernment in the question produces discernment in the answer.

The Buyer’s Trap: Why Asking AI for “Top Sales Trainers” Gets You the Wrong Answer Read Post »

The Four Commercial Mistakes Mission-Led Organisations Keep Making

By Sue Barrett / 21/08/2026 / Brand & Reputation, Business Growth, Sales Strategy, Value Proposition & Value Add

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Mission-led organisations often mistake public attention for a go-to-market strategy, repeating the same mistakes of undifferentiated messaging, campaign dependency, and sequencing branding before strategy.

The Shift: Commercial growth is not automatically good for a mission, it must be designed deliberately to strengthen rather than dilute it.

The Solution: Segment stakeholders properly, build differentiated messaging for each, and grow the commercial system with mission preservation built in from the start.

The Four Commercial Mistakes Mission-Led Organisations Keep Making Read Post »

Engage, Communicate, Sell Better: What Each Generation Brings To The Table

By Sue Barrett / 14/08/2026 / AI & Data, Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Sales Strategy, Value Proposition & Value Add

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Organisations often treat generational difference as a gap to manage rather than a resource to draw on, leaving experience and digital fluency siloed instead of combined.

The Shift: Knowledge is no longer gated by age or seniority, so the real advantage now lies in judgement, knowing what to do with information everyone can access, built through genuine two-way learning across generations.

The Solution: Create environments where younger digital fluency and experienced pattern recognition are exchanged in both directions, so engage, communicate and sell better works across the whole table, not just the senior end of it..

Engage, Communicate, Sell Better: What Each Generation Brings To The Table Read Post »

Responsible Selling Was Always Right. Now It’s Required

By Sue Barrett / 07/08/2026 / Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Sales Culture, Selling Better

In 30 seconds

Problem: Telcos face a fundamental shift as ACMA scraps industry self-regulation for a mandatory, directly enforceable standard, driven by high-pressure sales tactics and consumers sold plans they cannot afford.

The Shift: Penalties now reach $10 million or 30 per cent of turnover, with registration and deregistration powers attached. Responsible selling moves from aspiration to legal requirement.

The Solution: Organisations that already practise human-centred, ethical selling gain a structural head start. Responsible selling was always right. Now it is required, and the gap between the two has just become very expensive to ignore.

Responsible Selling Was Always Right. Now It’s Required Read Post »

Why change sticks in some organisations and stalls in others

By Sue Barrett / 24/07/2026 / Coaching, Leadership, Learning and Development, Sales Coaching, Sales Training

In 30 seconds

Problem: Most training never survives contact with the daily job. Organisations invest in workshops, then wonder why behaviour reverts within weeks, assuming the fault lies with the training content or the learner’s motivation.

The Shift: Research points elsewhere. The single biggest predictor of whether learning sticks isn’t the course, it’s whether the immediate manager reinforces it afterwards. Call centres already run on a rhythm built for this, continuous coaching, clear standards, short distance between leader and work, which is why change takes there without a push.

The Solution: Involve managers before learners, build a recurring rhythm rather than a one-off event, and measure behaviour change instead of course completion.

Why change sticks in some organisations and stalls in others Read Post »

cold-calls-are-answered-because-there-is-already-a-reason-to

Prospecting Without Proximity Does Not Convert

By Sue Barrett / 17/07/2026 / Business Development, Digital Social Selling, Prospecting, Uncategorized

In 30 seconds

Problem: Sales teams keep measuring call volume, but ANZ research shows 72 percent of the buyer’s shortlist is set before a vendor is contacted, and the day-one shortlist wins the deal 94 percent of the time.

Shift: The phone call has not stopped working, but it now arrives after the decision that matters most. It is judged against whatever visibility the buyer already has of the seller.

Solution: Build proximity deliberately, well before the buying journey starts, so a name is already on the shortlist when it forms, and the call is answered because there is already a reason to.

Prospecting Without Proximity Does Not Convert Read Post »

Your company account is talking. Your people are silent.

By Sue Barrett / 10/07/2026 / Digital credentials, Digital Social Selling, Hybrid Selling, Social Sales

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Your company account is active, but the people who do the work are invisible where buyers actually decide. When a buyer researches the person calling them and finds a thin or empty profile, that alone can cost the meeting. LinkedIn’s research shows half of buyers avoid sellers with incomplete profiles.

The Shift: Digital social selling is not a marketing campaign, and it is not your logo’s job. It is a distinct discipline: your commercial people being visible, credible and useful where buyers research.

The Solution: Make it shared accountability. Marketing builds the tools, leadership expects it, the C-suite models it, every individual owns their presence.

Your company account is talking. Your people are silent. Read Post »

The Generational Buying Committee

By Sue Barrett / 26/06/2026 / AI & Data, Business Development, Buying, Key Account Management, Sales Relationships, Value Proposition & Value Add

In 30 seconds

The Problem: The B2B buying decision is no longer one person’s to make. The average committee now runs to 13 or more stakeholders, each researching independently, and around 71% of them are Millennials or Gen Z. Most sales processes were built for a smaller, older, more uniform room that no longer exists.

The Shift: From selling to a single decision-maker to orchestrating a generationally mixed committee. Younger members research independently, filter out generic content, and give their loyalty to experience, not institutions. Older members still value the relationship. You must serve both at once.

The Solution: Run one commercial system for the whole room. Be visible and useful where buyers research, translate value into outcomes and evidence, name what clients feel, and hold the relationship discipline experienced buyers expect.

The Generational Buying Committee Read Post »

Consulting

Processes & Rules

Strategy

Our Approach

Training Topics & Programs

Leadership Training & Coaching

Overview

types of assessments

Sales benchmarking tools

Who we are

other

Case studies

Why Deals Stall More Than They’re Lost

In 30 seconds

The Buyer’s Trap: Why Asking AI for “Top Sales Trainers” Gets You the Wrong Answer

In 30 seconds

The Four Commercial Mistakes Mission-Led Organisations Keep Making

In 30 seconds

Engage, Communicate, Sell Better: What Each Generation Brings To The Table

In 30 seconds

Responsible Selling Was Always Right. Now It’s Required

In 30 seconds

Why change sticks in some organisations and stalls in others

In 30 seconds

The Generational Buying Committee

In 30 seconds

Details

Links

Legal

Our Brands