Barrett Consulting Group Blog - Helping people & businesses to sell better

Why the Sequence Matters: Engage. Communicate. Then Earn the Right to Sell.

By Sue Barrett / 05/06/2026 / Communication, Digital Social Selling, Everybody Lives By Selling Something, Value Proposition & Value Add

In 30 seconds

The Problem Most organisations try to sell before they have earned the right to. They skip straight to outreach, proposals, and pitches – and wonder why buyers are not listening. It is not a quality problem. It is a sequence problem.

The Shift Engage first. Be visible and useful where buyers research before any conversation begins. Then communicate value – not information, but translation. Convert your capability into the buyer’s specific outcome, language, and risk.

The Solution When you engage and communicate well, selling becomes the natural next step – not a hard ask. Fix the order. Change everything.

Why the Sequence Matters: Engage. Communicate. Then Earn the Right to Sell. Read Post »

Are You Signal or Noise? The 5 Questions That Determine Who Wins in B2B

By Sue Barrett / 29/05/2026 / Digital Social Selling, Marketing, Prospecting

In 30 seconds

The Problem: More than 60% of B2B buying decisions are shaped before a buyer ever calls you. We assessed 229 organisations. Three in four presented as noise. Their communication stated capability, not value. The shortlist closed without them.

The Shift: Marketing as brand stewardship is dead. Cold calling as the sole prospecting method is dead – younger buyers are not answering their phones. The old “us vs them” between marketing and sales creates a seam where trust should form.

The Solution: Engage, communicate and sell better. It is a sequence, not a slogan. The C-suite sets the commercial language. Marketing deploys it. Sales embodies it. Same language. No handoff. Just integration.

Are You Signal or Noise? The 5 Questions That Determine Who Wins in B2B Read Post »

direct-conversations-build-more-real-visibility-than-paid-campaigns

LinkedIn Promises Visibility. So Why Does Its Ad Model Make SMEs Invisible?

By Sue Barrett / 22/05/2026 / Business Growth, Digital Social Selling, Marketing, Sales Relationships

In 30 seconds

The Problem SMEs are paying tech giants for visibility and getting ghost leads in return. LinkedIn’s algorithm rewards large budgets and starves small ones – producing leads that look acceptable but never convert. The same structural penalty runs across Facebook and Instagram.

The Shift Stop broadcasting. Start occupying. Strategic commenting, genuine DMs, and direct conversation build more real visibility than paid campaigns ever will.

The Solution Move people to owned media – email, Substack, podcast. Use LinkedIn to bring people in, then give them somewhere the algorithm cannot touch.

LinkedIn Promises Visibility. So Why Does Its Ad Model Make SMEs Invisible? Read Post »

holding-your-seat-requires-the-same-commercial-courage-that-won-it

The Incumbent’s Curse: You Earned Your Seat. Here Is How You Keep It.

By Sue Barrett / 15/05/2026 / Key Account Management, Sales Planning, Sales Relationships, Selling Better

In 30 seconds

The Problem. Winning a B2B account triggers a dangerous psychological shift. Salespeople who operated with sharp curiosity during the sale get comfortable once signed. They stop diagnosing and start order-taking – reverting to passive QBRs, single-thread relationships, and a fear of friction. Your established clients are already someone else’s top prospects.

The Shift. Treat every account review like a discovery meeting. Map relationships continuously across the organisation. Keep telling hard truths, even when you have revenue to protect.

The Solution. Holding your seat requires the same commercial courage that won it. Strategic curiosity does not retire when the contract is signed.

The Incumbent’s Curse: You Earned Your Seat. Here Is How You Keep It. Read Post »

Stop “Just Checking In”: How to Follow Up Like a Trusted Advisor

By Sue Barrett / 08/05/2026 / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Communication, Sales Psychology, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills

In 30 seconds

The Problem: A deal stalls, anxiety creeps in, and the salesperson sends the most destructive email in modern B2B: “Just checking in.” In one line, months of trusted advisor positioning collapses into the language of a needy vendor.

The Shift: Order-takers check in. Trusted advisors add value with every interaction. A follow-up is not a chore for the client to manage. It is another opportunity to reinforce your commercial relevance.

The Solution: Follow up with a Give to Get insight, anchor to the cost of inaction against their own timeline or grant permission to close. Stop checking in. Start showing up.

Stop “Just Checking In”: How to Follow Up Like a Trusted Advisor Read Post »

How to Keep Your Seat When Procurement Enters the Room

By Sue Barrett / 01/05/2026 / Procurement

In 30 seconds

The Problem: After months of strategic selling, the deal lands on a procurement officer’s desk whose mandate is to commoditise your offering and drive the price down. Salespeople either fight Procurement as an enemy or cave instantly, and both destroy hard-won value.

The Shift: Procurement is not the final boss. They are a new stakeholder with different KPIs: risk mitigation and total cost of ownership, not strategic outcomes. Translate your value into their language.

The Solution: Refuse to be isolated from your champion, sell on TCO and risk, never concede without extracting equal value in return, and treat Procurement as a skilled peer.

How to Keep Your Seat When Procurement Enters the Room Read Post »

The Strategic Pushback: Why Saying ‘No’ Earns You the Right to Be There

By Sue Barrett / 24/04/2026 / Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Negotiation, Sales Skills, Soft skills, Value Based Selling

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Clients routinely test sales professionals with compressed timelines, unjustified discounts, or requests to strip down the solution. Most salespeople fold, fearing the deal will walk.

The Shift: Saying yes to a bad request is a trap. It erodes margins, sets delivery teams up to fail, and quietly lowers the client’s respect for you. Order-takers please. Trusted advisors push back to protect the integrity of the outcome.

The Solution: Hold your ground on timelines, sell on value not price, and refuse to deliver fragmented solutions you know will not work. Saying no earns you the right to stay at the strategic table.

The Strategic Pushback: Why Saying ‘No’ Earns You the Right to Be There Read Post »

How to Survive the “Silent Assassin” in Your Next Client Meeting

By Sue Barrett / 17/04/2026 / Key Account Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills

In 30 seconds

The Problem: In buying committee meetings, sales professionals instinctively focus on the engaged, enthusiastic stakeholders and avoid the quiet, sceptical ones. That sceptic – the operational manager whose team will live with your solution – goes unheard in the room, then kills the deal the moment you leave.

The Shift: Managing a room means managing the whole room, especially the people who are not nodding. Unvoiced risk does not disappear; it reappears later, without you there to address it.

The Solution: Draw out the sceptic directly, validate their concern without defending, and give them a meaningful role in the evaluation process. That is how you convert a Silent Assassin into an ally.

How to Survive the “Silent Assassin” in Your Next Client Meeting Read Post »

You Got a Seat at the Table. But Are You in the Right Room?

By Sue Barrett / 10/04/2026 / Business Acumen, Key Account Management, Sales performance

In 30 seconds

The Problem: You nailed the meeting. Your contact loves the solution. But weeks pass, the deal stalls, and budget approval never comes – because you were sitting at the wrong table. Your Technical Champion believes in you but cannot close the deal alone.

The Shift: In a tight economy, financial decisions move upward. The person who feels the pain rarely holds the purse strings. Single-threading through your champion means asking a non-salesperson to sell your value proposition to a sceptical CFO. They will almost always fail.

The Solution: Go with your champion, not around them. Co-author the business case. Ask about the approval process. Then request the introduction – framing it as strategic alignment, not a sales escalation. Earn the right room.

You Got a Seat at the Table. But Are You in the Right Room? Read Post »

The First 5 Minutes: How to Stop Sounding Like a Vendor

By Sue Barrett / 02/04/2026 / Brand & Reputation, Buying, Communication, Sales Skills, Uncategorized

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Most salespeople sabotage their credibility in the first five minutes. They over-apologise, fill time with aimless small talk, or launch straight into a pitch deck. The moment they do, they signal “vendor” rather than “trusted advisor” and lose the peer dynamic before the conversation even starts.

The Shift: The way you open a meeting sets the entire tone of the relationship. Advisors diagnose; vendors present. Your body language, your language, and your agenda-setting either earn you a seat at the table or confirm you were never meant to have one.

The Solution: Own the room from minute one. Replace apologies with anticipation, pivot small talk purposefully, frame the meeting as mutual exploration, and check for shifted priorities before diving in. Peer dynamics are not granted, they are established, and the first 300 seconds are yours to claim.

The First 5 Minutes: How to Stop Sounding Like a Vendor Read Post »

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The Incumbent’s Curse: You Earned Your Seat. Here Is How You Keep It.

In 30 seconds

Stop “Just Checking In”: How to Follow Up Like a Trusted Advisor

In 30 seconds

How to Keep Your Seat When Procurement Enters the Room

In 30 seconds

The Strategic Pushback: Why Saying ‘No’ Earns You the Right to Be There

In 30 seconds

How to Survive the “Silent Assassin” in Your Next Client Meeting

In 30 seconds

You Got a Seat at the Table. But Are You in the Right Room?

In 30 seconds

The First 5 Minutes: How to Stop Sounding Like a Vendor

In 30 seconds

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