Why ‘Coaching with Compassion’ leads to healthier coaches

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Education in Sales, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Resilience, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Wellbeing

At Barrett we are very mindful of our coaching approach and the well-being of the coaches and coachees. Read what Jens Hartmann, our head of Learning and Development has to say about this.

‘Coaching with Compassion’ not only is better for the coachee, it has health benefits for the coach as well

Let’s say you’re a sales leader, and you have the opportunity to coach a salesperson who has a decent track record. This has been their week:

Some big deals are taking more effort and time to close than expected; there’s pressure to close deals before the end of the …

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Why should I give a damn about you?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Wellbeing

The Common Ground Series – Part 2

As mentioned previously, Finding Common Ground is about exploring shared interests, beliefs, or opinions between two people or groups of people who may disagree about most other subjects.

In a world where the media, governments and self interest groups are portraying, more often than not, a polarised ‘us’ versus ‘them’ narrative, even though many of us go about our day-to-day interacting with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, it’s even more important that we resist this divisiveness and work together to find common ground for the common good.

Why?

Octavio Paz, …

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Trust me, I’m a salesperson

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Opportunity, Sales Relationships, Sales Results, Sales Trends, Trust

Sales Trend 6 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 is about how successful salespeople are rising to the challenge of rebuilding trust at a time when trust in business is particularly low.

When trust in business and organisations in general is low, no one is more affected by it than salespeople. Salespeople are at the frontline of the business. They are the visible face. So when things go pear-shaped, the ones who lose credibility and trust are salespeople themselves. The famous Edelman report and a study conducted by Roy Morgan reveal that trust in businesses is at …

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In order to progress we must first find common ground

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Life Skills, Sustainability & Environment, Wellbeing

The Common Ground Series – Part 1

Common ground: shared interests, beliefs, or opinions between two people or groups of people who disagree about most other subjects. (Cambridge dictionary)

Finding common ground is indispensable to our progress, especially if we are to move forward as communities and solve the most pressing issues we have to deal with as humans inhabiting an abundant but vulnerable and finite planet. This matter affects us all, in all aspects of our lives and as such it is a topic worth exploring and understanding in more depth. This article is the first in a series about progress …

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The Sales Juggling Act: how to keep your eye on the sales prize

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better

Sales is integral to business. Without sales we don’t have a business.

But running a sales operation, leading the sales effort and guiding and directing a sales team can be a constant juggling act. Sales operations have many moving parts and they all require constant vigilance and effective decision making. The execution risk is always high.

Sales operations and teams are also fragile ecosystems. Set up well to perform to a standard, they require constant hands-on leadership and stewardship; it’s like keeping a set of spinning plates spinning. Take your eyes off those sales plates for a second and everything can come …

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Avoiding a Kodak Moment: A positive Case Study on managing change for better sales & business

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Success

A positive Case Study on managing change, pain and quick wins in line with a Long Term Strategy

Human beings, by and large, are notorious for staying with what is familiar to them and not wanting to ‘rock the boat’, instead chasing the familiar quick fix, the easy option, that which feels safe and comfortable.

‘Why not get as much out of today as I can and to hell with the future’. Boom and bust mentality.

‘We’ve always done it this way, no need to change’. Staying in our comfort zone mentality.

‘If it’s not broken, why fix it?’ Not keeping an open mind …

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Sales trend 5 – Using sales enablement technology to build trust

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Brand & Reputation, Sales Culture, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Sales Trends

Guest author: Steve Hall

Sales Trend 5 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 is about why ‘more’ isn’t ‘better’ when it comes to sales enablement technology.

Sales enablement technology is becoming more and more sophisticated. Artificial intelligence, Account Based Marketing (ABM) platforms, email tracking, autodiallers and so on are enabling more salespeople to reach out more often to more prospects.

But the search for newer, better, faster sales enablement technology is seeing a counter-trend emerge – one that focuses on creating better understanding of the people who really matter – the prospects.  And this includes you, because you’re …

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The Power of Assumptions

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Communication, Customer Service, Ethics & Values, Sales Skills, Sales Tips
By guest writer Jens Hartmann, Head of L&D, Barrett

Driving away customers

Have you ever come across a salesperson making assumptions about you, your needs and expectations, or your experience? Then you are probably aware of how powerful these assumptions can be – at driving you away as a customer.

We experienced this recently. While undergoing renovations on our home, we ordered a new bathtub -stand alone, a very plain and symmetrical design – straight from a local manufacturer. However, when it got delivered after some 2 months or so, towards the end of the bathroom renovations as planned, it was not symmetrical …

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How to make informed Buying & Voting decisions in a sea of Biased & Fake News

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Buying, Ethics & Values, Life Skills

In a world filled with so many opportunities, choices and facts there are also equal amounts, if not more, of biased news, fake news and fads, which now make it that much harder to make sound decisions, buy or purchase anything or vote with confidence.

The internet and, more specifically, social media is flooding us with so much information that it is screwing up with what I call ‘our bat radar’ – our ability to make informed decisions about whatever is important to us.

Many people are vying for our attention, our spend and our votes. And it seems many will do …

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Sales Trend 4 – Trust improves the Learning and Development culture

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Trends, Trust

Sales Trend 4 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 explores how working within a culture of mistrust affects salespeople and their ability to develop trusted relationships with clients.

Building trust is key to sustainable long term sales relationships. This is surprisingly true even for very large B2B sales, despite the availability of hard facts on the buying company’s reliability, cash flow, payment morale, etc. Trust is still key to long term relationships that doesn’t require controlling and compliance functions all the time.

Creating and earning trust is therefore a skill salespeople have to master, and indeed, a lot …

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