Necessity is the mother of invention: How to keep on selling better during COVID-19

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Wellbeing

As the world responds to contain the COVID-19 disease, we want to make sure that your and our teams stay safe so we are adjusting our commitments and activities in accordance to current regulations.

We also understand that for businesses these are troubling times, but there are ways forward. As they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. We want to stay by your side and help you assess your situation, whether that be devising a sales strategy in line with the new reality, or helping your staff keep the business going in a feasible and responsible way. At Barrett we …

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Open for Business: How to keep selling & doing business during COVID-19

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Resilience, Sales Strategy, Wellbeing

*Please refer to the relevant health experts and authorities for advice and guidance on any health or social concerns.

Have you noticed how easy it is to get spooked in times of crisis and uncertainty what with COVID-19, bushfires, floods, panic buying and climate crisis? Given what we see on social media and in the news you’d be forgiven for asking ‘Is it all over?’

Well NO, it is not. Far from it.

COVID-19 will pass eventually. Yes, it is having a dramatic impact on various industries and people, especially those involved in international travel, tourism, conferences/events, hospitality and of course, healthcare. This …

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Generation Equality in Sales = much better sales results

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Common Ground, Ethics & Values, Gender & Sales, Sales performance, Sales Results, women-in-sales

This Sunday, 8 March 2020, marks International Women’s Day and the United Nations’ theme for 2020 is:

I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights.

The theme is aligned with UN Women’s new multigenerational campaign, Generation Equality, which marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Given the theme of Generation Equality it seems only apt that we take a look at what women and men can learn from each other when it comes to having successful sales careers. But before I dive into the topic in more depth here is a brief history on how …

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What to do when there’s panic in the air…get focused & get selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Life Skills, Opportunity, Prospecting, Resilience, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales performance, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Success

I’ve been around long enough to have lived and worked through major recessions, financial crises i.e. GFC, and general downturns in business and survived, if not thrived during these times. Why?

The clever investors, business and salespeople look at downturns in markets as opportunities to get further ahead. They look at the evidence at hand, the trends that are emerging and see opportunity, when many others see disaster. I don’t mean that these people are blithely skipping through the day oblivious to the challenges facing communities, markets and economies.

The truth is they are probably far more aware of all the challenges …

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Sales Trend 2 – A better way of doing business

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment, Wellbeing

Sales trend 2 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trend Report for 2020 is about what businesses and sales teams can do now to start making a difference for people and the planet.

The time for talking is past. The planet and its inhabitants can’t wait any longer. Now is the time for decisive action.

Businesses and organisations can, and should, be part of the solution and support sustainable development, wellbeing and a prosperous future for all.

The blue print is here.

The navigation system is ready for deployment. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for every business and organisation …

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Fairness in trading terms for SMEs

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Common Ground, Entrepreneurship, Ethics & Values

You know the story ‘small business wins huge deal with large client’. Amazing.

Everyone is celebrating. ‘Biggest deal we’ve ever had. OMG’

So after the win, the small business sends their terms and conditions for signing and the big client comes back with “we can’t sign your payment terms of 14 days, our payment terms are 60 days after the end of the month of invoice”, that is, if you are lucky, because the reality can be  90 days or more. Which is really bad for business, especially small businesses.

But, the small business agrees because ‘it’s such a good opportunity’ not necessarily …

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The Noble Profession of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Self Development, Selling Better, Success

The statement ‘The noble profession of Selling’ may sit well with some. While many others would find ways to say everything to the contrary, bringing up stories about how they or others were ripped off by shonky salespeople. I mean why is it that when someone’s deceived by someone else they say ‘they’ve done a sales job on them’? There’s nothing noble about that, you’d agree.

In a world where it’s too easy to engage and influence people with catchy slogans and memes that can propagate negative stereotypes, fear of the other, division, misinformation and myths, and keep people ignorant or …

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Storytelling for Better Sales & Enriching Relationships

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Communication, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Self Development, Self Promotion, Vision, Mission & Purpose

The truth is we all tell stories every day in a myriad of ways in varieties of situations for a variety of reasons.

In ancient times, oral storytelling was the original way we passed down our knowledge and wisdom to the next generation.  Here in Australia, First Nations people call it The Dreamtime.

Storytelling is inherent in human nature. Storytelling is inherent in sales.

Stories told and aligned to the organisation’s purpose and principles, enrich, transform and sell.

Storytelling like Selling, is ubiquitous. 

How well we tell stories, the right stories at the right time for the right reasons to the right people well that’s a whole other story.

This is what I would like to focus on here, especially as it relates to selling.

But I have to set the scene with you first.

Over 10 years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Sandy McDonald, an author, TEDx speaker, and a clarity and storytelling trainer and coach. I was presenting to a group of people at a public seminar on The Psychology of Call Reluctance and the Fear of Self Promotion. Sandy was in the audience. The reason I remember Sandy so well is that a few days post this session, she sent me a blog she had written about me, my topic and the stories I shared and the positive impact it had on her. This had never happened to me before and I was very moved by her narrative.

We connected on Linkedin, chatted every now and then but it wasn’t until early 2019 that we reconnected again on a much deeper level. You see I had just released my book ‘142 Days of Gratitude that changed my life forever’ and posted a chapter excerpt which explained what prompted me to write the book. Sandy reconnected with me again posting her story about what my story meant to her.

What became clear is that our relationship was being forged on storytelling and that storytelling is at the heart of every human relationship. Which is why we are now working together to help other people develop their craft in storytelling to build meaningful connections and forge better relationships that drive better business and create better outcomes personally and professionally.

I’m a storyteller by default because I have never studied the craft of storytelling like Sandy has. For instance, Sandy’s been working with us to Barrett to help us further develop our stories. She’s been working with us on how we tell the story of our 25 years of evolution at Barr

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Global Trends

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Blog, covid-19, Forecasting, Systems Thinking

Sales trend 1 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trend Report for 2020 is about what businesses and sales teams can do now to start making a difference for people and the planet.

Now is always a good time to confront an uncertain future. While forecasting accurately beyond 90 days is generally a coin toss, it is never pointless asking (and sharing) questions about the future and likely scenarios. This is especially useful if it flushes out clear dissenters, who may have an unconventional view or new information.

Predictions can also be over complicated – nominating odds …

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Crowdsourcing Sales Forecasting to deliver better certainty

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Forecasting, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Forecasting, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Selling Better, Success

People love certainty, especially when it comes to business. Which is why sales forecasting and sales pipeline management can often be the bane of sales leaders and their sales teams’ lives with senior management constantly on their backs wanting to know what deals will land and when, and when the revenue will start to come in. It’s relentless.

So given the current state of the world and the climate of uncertainty, it’s a good time to look at some of the latest thinking and work being done to improve the certainty of sales forecasting and pipeline management.

Current Situation with Sales Forecasting

Tracking …

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