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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How to sell better in uncertain times

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Mindful selling, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Management, Sales Strategy

Here we go again.

Global disarray, government elections, political scandals of betrayal and corruption. How do we keep our head when everyone else around us is losing theirs? How are we supposed to lead business and keep selling better when there’s a general feeling of uncertainty that makes decision making so difficult?

There are those of us who have been around in business for some time now. Many of us have been through a few major crises before such as the GFC and the major recession we had in the early 1990s. Things weren’t pretty, for sure, and yes there was a …

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6 Tips on How to Sell Value and Reposition Price – Take 2

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Competition, Education in Sales, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better

Another week goes by and another dozen stories of businesses discounting prices (or being asked to do so by their prospects or clients) appear. This week we heard about a few examples:

  • a business being asked by a prospect to ‘give us a better price because you are doing a few things with us’,
  • a business being told by a client, midway through a project, that ‘they would love to keep on working with them but competitor XYZ can now do it for 25% less because they can bring in cheaper consultants from overseas ’, and
  • another business being asked to give a …

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    2019 Sales Trends Event  – Trust me, I’m in Sales

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Procurement, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Sales Research, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Sustainability & Environment

    On 27 March 2019 we hosted our 7th Sales Trends Business Breakfast celebrating the 10th edition of the Barrett Annual 12 Sales Trends Report with Trust as our central theme.

    Over 120 people attended the event, mostly business people but we also had the Year 11 International Baccalaureate Student Representatives of the Melbourne Montessori School attend to further their knowledge and education as they study Business Management.

    The attendees heard from our special guest speakers, Suzanne Paynter, Strategy and Policy Advisor for the Future Business Council, and Andrew Smith, Head of Business Customer at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and myself, where we …

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    It all starts with Opportunity

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Opportunity, Optimism, Resilience, Success

    Life is all about opportunity.

    It’s about the choices we make on a daily basis.

    We are all presented with opportunities every day whether we see them or not.

    Some people are lucky enough to have opportunities served up to them on the platter of life not having to work very hard for them. And even then, these people may not realise their opportunities and let them sail away.

    While others are given very little or nothing by way of opportunity, yet they are determined to make the most of their abilities and surrounding circumstance to create and realise opportunity where none may have …

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