Who we are:
Creators and innovators of viable strategies and solutions linking people performance to business performance.

What we do:
Using common sense, industry experience and knowledge of people performance strategies, we create direct links between business strategy and peoples actions resulting in real revenue line increases.

We offer specialist consulting and resource services in two key areas:

• Barrett Sales Consulting:
  Leading experts and pioneers in sustainable sales growth, performance and culture strategies and solutions.
  
  
• Barrett People Resources:
  Creators and innovators of contemporary and leading edge selection, performance and retention resources, strategies and solutions.

1. New product launches
2. New market directions
3. New research

Barrett Consulting Group has achieved 10 years in business in 2005.  Established on 9 January 1995 and Winner of the 1997 Telstra Small Business Award, Barrett Consulting Group has developed a unique place in the Australian market place by specialising in helping people and organisations Unlock & Access Their Potential For Elite Sales Performance.

The statistics say... The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that only 20% of businesses will be running successfully after five years of operation. Furthermore, of that 20%, more than 80% will close down or disappear over the subsequent five years. That equates to only 4% of businesses reaching 10 years in operation. These statistics confirm just how challenging running a small business can be.

A Decade At Barrett Consulting Group - In Retrospect...  We have employed 21 people including sales consultants, psychologists, learning and development managers, administrative staff and IT experts.  We have worked with many clients across many industries in Australia and New Zealand and are now working on projects in Asia Pacific, United States and United Kingdom.

During this 10 year period, we have explored, examined and distilled our work to the point where Barrett has developed a brand that is single minded about having clients achieve extraordinary sales results.  We have developed a reputation for being able to work with organisations to achieve professional sustainable sales and service cultures where even the most skeptical executives are converted by exceptional revenue results and definite returns on investment. Using a scientific approach, we have helped many organisations yield real and sustainable revenue results (average revenue increases of 20-50%) and shifted some of the stereotypes that exist about selling.

New initiatives... We are now taking that approach and applying it to our new concept ACTIVATE - a suite of Online diagnostic tools that allow individuals to undertake assessments most relevant to their personal or professional circumstances. However, the magic of ACTIVATE rests with its ability to interpret outputs and translate them into meaningful pathways for individuals to pursue to progress their career/job ambitions.

We extend our thanks and gratitude...  Barrett Consulting Group has certainly come a long way from the small enterprise Sue Barrett began at her kitchen table with just $3,000. We could not have got to where we are now without the initiative, creativity, determination and dedication of past and present employees and contractors all of whom who have contributed to the essence that is Barrett.  Equally we would not have been able to apply our work without the many clients who have trusted us to help them achieve their business and strategic objectives through their people.  Barrett now counts a number of Australia's & New Zealand's public & private corporations as clients as well as some of the most effective & entrepreneurial SME's in Australia.   We wish to extend our thanks to all those people.

So to the future ... At Barrett, we do not rest. We accept the fact that although our work may have the most effective approach to unlocking elite sales performance today, we must be continually seeking to develop the next generation of ‘thinking’ on how to drive elite sales performance. We are hungry for knowledge and recognise that we cannot dare to challenge the paradigms of its clients if is not continually challenging its own.

We look forward to the next 10 years and what that will bring for us all.

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After reading the excellent book "How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People" by Australian Author Social Commentator, Lecturer, Futurist and Technologist; Jonar C Nader I was impressed with his ability to cut through all the waffle and get straight to the point about a number of important issues and how they affect people both personally and professionally.  Given our focus on elite sales performance I approached Jonar and sort permission to publish some excerpts from his book as it relates to Leadership, Customer Service, Sales and Prosperity .

Here is the first in a series of articles which I hope you will find interesting:

It is a fact of corporate life that no enterprise is in the business of “service”. Despite initial denials, no-one can dispute this shock–horror. Corporations are not there to serve anybody. At best, they sometimes operate under a clear mission — but serving people is not one of them. Motherhood statements are a dime-a-dozen. Chief executive officers (CEOs) still kid themselves, espousing customer-care or customer-delight or service excellence. They believe that they are out to put the “wow” into customer satisfaction. Well, never mind the “wow”, just get rid of the “arrrh”.

For years, I have been saying that service in most industries is atrocious and brings me to the point of having to invent violent words merely to come close to exclaiming my dissatisfaction with any degree of accuracy.

Are you ready for a sex change?

What is it that customer service hinges on? The single most important element is “speed”. However, before an organisation decides to engage in customer service, it must treat the decision with all the due diligence that one would afford to the notion of a sex change.

If, after exhaustive deliberation, an organisation decides that service is the way to go, it must then make it clear to all concerned that “customer service” means doing for the customer whatever the customer wants. It does not matter what this is — for such is the burden of “missionary” work.

In doing for the customer whatever the customer demands, speed must be the key factor. Within this framework, an organisation is promising to invent new systems and processes within a matter of seconds — and this sounds unrealistic for most bureaucracies. Therefore, it might pay for honest organisations to own up and call it like it is. We would then no longer suffer false promises such as those expounded in advertisements, showing a half-naked traveller clutching a telephone outside a village café in Timbuktu, recounting his sad plight to some sympathetic operator who manages to replace his debit card within twenty-four hours, find him a local neurosurgeon, and set him up in some swanky hotel with a cash advance and a new Armani wardrobe — delivered pressed, with starch; on a hanger, please.

Those who construct loyalty programs through frequent-flyer points, and the like, are merely trying to trap the customer. Loyalty must come naturally, not via points and schemes. If your customers are loyal to you as a result of such programs, they are not loyal. Such schemes are tangible, and tangible things are susceptible to the law of annihilation. Anything that you do can be matched by your competitor. Frequent-flyer points have become a serious financial burden to airlines. However, which airline dares to be the first to cancel its scheme? Having the scheme no longer provides a competitive advantage, but not having the scheme would create an unattractive deficiency — unless something of perceived equal value takes its place. In short, this makes the scheme more of a burden to the organisation than it is a benefit to the customer.

Customer loyalty is intangible — meaning that it must come from the heart. In business, matters of the heart come from atmosphere and attitude. Do you have the atmosphere and attitude within your organisation to win the heart of each customer? Only then can you count on loyalty.

You can’t serve two bosses

It is too difficult to operate a profit-seeking business and have two bosses. The customer cannot be your boss when the shareholders are your first priority. Therefore, the customer cannot come first — meaning that you are not in the business of serving the customer. You are in the business of supplying goods and/or services to the specifications that were agreed upon. Your obligation is to be truthful and honourable. Beyond that, you need not put up with customers’ demands that do not comply with your corporate objectives; nor should you raise expectations about things you cannot deliver.

For your own sake, reel in those advertisements and read every one of them. Watch your television hype then scrutinise your brochures and media releases. You might begin to understand why unsuspecting customers appear to be too demanding. Examine the statistics that show how frequently you targeted a certain group with over-exaggerated statements about your service, your quality, and your supposed responsiveness. Can you blame customers for thinking that they deserve better than what you give them?

When I say that your customer is not your boss, this does not mean that you abandon courtesy to new customers or to customers with whom you have developed a long-term relationship or a friendship.

Forget about customer service - find ways to sell to the customer!

The customer-service craze has its roots in one things — making more money. If this be the aim, let’s get to the point. Forget about ways to “serve the customer” and find ways to “sell to the customer” so that you can make more money.

There is a big difference between “serving the customer” and “selling to the customer”. The former implies activity designed to make the customer happy. The latter is a sales process that makes your shareholders ecstatic.

The naive will call this “semantics”. The astute will realise that a simple shift would focus the group on the fundamentals of the business — profits. The pedantic would say that without happy customers, you would not have profits. The point is that if profits are what you are trying to generate, set out to generate them. When you start with the end goal in mind and work back to reverse-engineer a solution, you will find that customers are important because they buy things. Therefore, it stands to reason to find ways for your customers buy more things. The emphasis ought to be on “selling”, not “serving”.

There are ethical ways of capturing extra business to make extra profits. It would be a delight to enter a store and see a plaque on the wall that reads, “We are in the business of making a profit. If you know of additional ways that we can do this, please let us know.” Customers would be delighted to respond to such honesty because they would be happy to spend more money with one supplier in return for a predictable and satisfactory outcome. Organisations know this, but they say that they would be willing to oblige if only they knew what customers want. This is a mistake. Never mind what the “customers” want. Go in search of what the “customer” would pay for.

If you truly wish to generate more profits in the networked world, there are three things that you need to understand.

• The first is that customers do not always know what they want.
  
• The second is that most of an organisation’s preoccupation with customer service stems from complaints about faulty goods and broken promises.
•  The third is that most organisations have all the data that they need to capture more profits from their customers. These three aspects are explained below.

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Improved sales performance is one of the keys to business success.  Typically the approach is to focus on assessing and developing individual competencies associated with sales success.  However, such an approach typically ignores sales force retention and alignment, two key contributors to sales performance.

Two pieces of research are particularly relevant:

•  The cost of turnover is up to 2.5 times the employee’s salary; and
•  Job satisfaction and engagement (i.e., workforce alignment), can account for up to 23% difference in productivity.

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I often gaze across the room (maybe its a women’s breakfast or a board room meeting) and wonder what on earth were they thinking when they got out of bed this morning!  I am sometimes totally convinced that alien beings forced them to mash into their wardrobe, dive amongst the clothes and make the rash decisions to pop on that 90’s tie teamed with the just a little too short pant or the puffy sleeved number that no one will notice as it is tucked under that too long, over tailored shoulder padded coat!!

Image says a multitude about a company but the individual representing that company can say even more if they are not careful.  If you are associated with a company whose positioning and vision is to inspire or to vaguely innovate - your clothes must say this as well.  So is image is everything?

How the clothes are presented can send a number of different messages.  A sharp dark suit with a beautifully pressed shirt can murmur ‘beware - I have fabulous attention to detail’.  A carefully constructed combination of modern angles and cut can express ‘ I am creative and able to think laterally!’ Or should we dare to mention the one too many buttons undone to reveal the lacy number underneath … Needless to say every creation sends a message. It also can position you on the corporate ladder or help with an intended client. If they are a powerful dresser, dress that way too, then it sends a message to him or her that you understand them and desire to assist them to succeed!

>From head to toe, grooming is also extremely important. The suit might be fabulous but if the hair needs a cut i.e. the man’s fuzz hitting the collar or the women’s locks are straggling to excess then the image fails! Shoes must be clean and in premium repair,  buttons attached and no loose threads.  Ladies, careful with the makeup… make sure the mascara is not smudged let alone the lippy!  Also the look should be current. A friend of mine expressed ‘she was very frustrated with her mother’s 80’s look’ and whipped her off to the D.J’.s makeup department to have it rectified immediately!

If you honestly have no idea - do not panic there are a number of avenues open to you to ensure that you are on trend and in style.  There are various clothing consultants that specialise in giving you a look for your shape and height. Make sure that you are comfortable with their direction and they are giving you the look you want!  If your too embarrassed or short of cash to approach the experts - then watch TV shows such as Queer Eye for a Straight  Guy or the fashion channel on Foxtel or grab the latest fashion mag. The larger department stores are now offering fashion co - ordination services as well.

So next time your contemplating wearing something you haven’t for 12 months – STOP - re-examine your choice and consider whether it will send the right message, if not, give it to your favourite charity as you probably will never wear it again.  Remember your image says a lot about you and the company you keep!  So whilst image may not be everything in the long run, your image does set up expectations, make sure they are the right expectation.. and in today's fast paced, quick grab, sound bite society it may pay to put a more conscious effort into how you present yourself.

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Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance - Fear Fear Prospecting & Self Promotion Workshop.

• More Info in the Brochure
• When: 18 February 2005
• Contact: (03) 9532 767719

Optimsing Sales for Business Success - Solution Selling Skills Program.

• More Info in the Brochure
• When: 19 April 2005
• Contact: (03) 9532 767719

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At Barrett Consulting Group we aim to present material that will be of interest to our clients and colleagues. Our aim is to challenge mindsets and give people the opportunity to reassess old ways and bring in new ideas. You may not always agree with what we present, however, if it gives you a different perspective to view the world from then that is our intention. If you have feedback you would like to give us on any of our topics or if you would like to submit an article to this newsletter please send us your feedback using this online form.

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• Be passionate and courageous about what we do
• Keep a firm eye on the bottom line
• Be disciplined in thought and action
• Be committed to our firm's business success
• Explore ideas, be innovative and create practical real solutions
• Develop healthy, productive relationships with co-workers and clients
• Let others know about our firm
• Take responsibility and ownership for our work
• See our work as part of a holistic environment
• See the link between our job, our clients' and our organisation's success
• Help set and implement organisational goals
• Take personal responsibility for client service

All Companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought you don't need bureaucracy. When you have displined action, you don't need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship you get a magical alchemy of great performance.

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