Barrett Sales Blog - Helping people and businesses to sell better

Our Contribution to Cracking the Code for a Gender-equal Future – IWD 2023

By Sue Barrett / 02/03/2023 / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Gender & Sales, Sell Like A Woman, Uncategorized, women-in-sales

It’s International Women’s Day on 8th March and the United Nations’ theme this year is Cracking the Code: Innovation for a gender-equal future.

This theme emphasises the importance of bold, transformative ideas, inclusive technologies, and accessible education in combating discrimination and the marginalization of women globally.

And while there are mountains of work to be done to achieve gender-equality on every level, one bold initiative – a transformative idea that is staring us all in the face; something we can adopt immediately- is getting more women and girls learning how to master and apply ethical, human-centred sales practices, processes, and principles – …

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tackling-rise-of-rudeness-with-Courtesy-and-Respect

Tackling the Rise of Rudeness with Courtesy & Respect

By Sue Barrett / 23/02/2023 / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Common Ground, Ethics & Values, Leadership, Life Skills, Sales Culture, Success, Teamwork, Wellbeing

If you’re sensing that rudeness and incivility are on the rise lately, you would be right.

Research shows that since the pandemic incidents of rudeness and incivility have been escalating worldwide.

Before we look further at the statistics, let’s look at Rudeness and Incivility themselves.

Culturally, people can be perceived as rude if they are too direct, blunt, or cheeky, or if they do not follow certain social mores – customs and codes of behaviour established by a social group- whether they intended to behave that way or not; however, this is not what we are talking about here.

This post is specifically calling …

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The Moral Case for Human-centred Businesses

By Sue Barrett / 15/02/2023 / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Sales Trends, Uncategorized

Sales trend 2 of Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report for 2023 presents the moral case for putting humans at the centre of businesses.

Adam Smith, often referred to as the father of capitalism, was, in fact, a moral philosopher and said, “Markets could not flourish without a strong underlying moral culture, animated by empathy and fellow-feeling, by our ability to understand our common bond as human beings and to recognize the needs of others.” Smith recognised the moral aspects of humans and the importance of supporting the common good when it came to creating healthy and prosperous societies. …

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Celebrating Women & Girls in Science

By Sue Barrett / 08/02/2023 / Blog, Sales Skills, Self Promotion, Sell Like A Woman, Success, Uncategorized

Saturday 11th February is International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

For centuries, if not millennia, women have been making huge contributions to the advancement of science, mathematics, technology, and engineering (STEM) however, most people wouldn’t know that this was the case. Too many women in science go unrecognised for their amazing achievements and contributions to science, the economy and society in general, with only a few finding their rightful place in history, often towards the end of their lives or posthumously.

Take Hedy Lamarr for instance, best known as a famous Austrian-American Hollywood actress, who was also …

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Sales Performance – what are we really measuring?

By Sue Barrett / 03/02/2023 / Blog, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales performance, Sales Results

The prevalent way of measuring sales performance is a combination of KPIs. These include the obvious sales results, and a few others, like number of calls and meetings, new opportunities, etc.

However, longer sales cycles and more complex ways of selling like Solution Selling and Value Based Selling, or segmentation approaches like Strategic / Key Account Management demand a more sophisticated approach to measuring effectiveness. The biggest challenge when measuring the performance of our sales teams is how to measure quality rather than just quantity of sales results.

Leaders need to move from a deficiency orientation …

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Selling is Everybody’s Business

By Sue Barrett / 24/01/2023 / Blog, Customer Service, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Selling Better, Success

Selling is everybody’s business. Any organisation that wants better sales results need to start by recognising this.

Selling has to be a whole business focus. Every person in a business needs to understand and acknowledge that we are all in sales now. Everyone, from production, credit, procurement to post-sales service, is part of the sales value chain.

Customer service

What better example to illustrate this point than customer service? How many clients are lost each year due to bad customer service? Research across the world shows that anywhere from 65% to 91% of clients that have a bad experience with customer service will …

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The Case for Human-centred Economics

By Toby Kent / 18/01/2023 / Blog, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Sustainability & Environment

Sales trend 1 of Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report for 2023 is about why we need to become human-centred in our economic activities.

By guest author TOBY KENT // Toby Kent is a Partner in PwC’s Energy Transition team and leads PwC’s work with privately held companies.

The challenge afoot

A human-centred economy is one in which the primary, and arguably only goal, of an economic system should be to better the lives of those within it. The focus of a Human-Centered Economy is to maximize human welfare.

In a recent role, I focused a lot on urban issues. I would often deride …

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A Woman in Sales & 28 years in Business

By Sue Barrett / 13/01/2023 / Blog, Gender & Sales, Leadership, Sales Culture, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sell Like A Woman, Vision, Mission & Purpose, women-in-sales

Twenty-eight years ago, on 9th January 1995, I started Barrett Consulting Group with the purpose of understanding the system of sales and putting humanity back on the corporate map. I’ve learnt a lot about sales, business, people, systems, behaviours, ethics, society, and myself over that time.

Since then we have launched the Selling Better Movement – an ethical and human-centred selling ethos underpinned by a practical selling philosophy, Sales Essentials – online courses and resources you need for a successful sales career, and Sell Like A Woman – programs to highlight, promote and capitalise on the power …

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Barrett Sales Trends 2023 Humans at the Centre

12 Sales Trends for 2023 – Humans at the Centre

By Sue Barrett / 21/12/2022 / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Blog, Human-centred

The evidence is clear, the prevailing business model of the last 50 years where profit and shareholder return have been put above everything else hasn’t been good for business, sustainability, or the wellbeing of employees, suppliers, customers, communities, and the planet. While very few have profited handsomely, it has shown to be at the expense of the majority, with dire consequences. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality.

All of our annual Barrett 12 Sales Trends reports, but in particular the last three editions, have focused specifically on what leading-edge businesses and their sales operations are doing now and …

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Putting humanity back on the corporate map

By Sue Barrett / 16/12/2022 / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Human-centred

It’s time we put humanity back on the corporate map

This was my core purpose when I started Barrett Consulting Group on 9th January 1995, and it still is today, 28 years later.

Prior to starting Barrett, I’d been in corporate for 11 years, giving my best, but feeling out of sorts, unsure about the purpose of business and sales. Something didn’t feel right.

I could see back in the late 1980s and early 1990s that business priorities were dramatically shifting:

People were being reduced to consumers with an overemphasis on profit maximisation, shareholder return, and reductionism at the expense of holistic systems, humans, …

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