142 Days of Gratitude that Changed my Life Forever

By / / Gratitude

I have written a book. Not a business e-book as my previous ones but a paperback book. This book sits somewhere between business, self-help and memoir underpinned by a bit of science and philosophy as well. It was a labour of love and I enjoyed every minute of writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it too.

Here’s an excerpt – Chapter 2: What led to my 142 days of Gratitude?

I was contending with numerous issues in 2014. Some were in my control, some I could influence, and some were beyond my control.

Something outside of my control was the political climate …

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Someone has to sell, or you don’t have a business

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

Someone has to do the selling or you don’t have a business.

I have met many people over the years who have great ideas, skills, processes or inventions but hate the thought of selling.

They usually come from two camps:

Camp 1: Those people who understand they have to sell in order to have a business but just do not know how to do it. They often harbour some fears and anxieties about selling because of its bad public reputation and can feel overwhelmed about what they have to do. However, I find these people are willing to have a go.

I will gladly …

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Sales Trend 3 – Trust me, I am in procurement

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Procurement

Guest author: Ben Shute, FCIPS , Chief Executive Officer Comprara & Purchasing Index

Sales Trend 3 from looks at how trust influences procurement and how changes in the industry are affecting this relationship, see the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019.

What does it mean to trust someone? It certainly does not mean that we know everything about them. Indeed, after a certain point, further information is meaningless. Studies have shown that once an impression is made, new facts don’t necessarily trigger a reassessment. If our trust is formed based on first-hand interaction, we are even more resistant to …

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If I was Prime Minister for a day

By / / Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Imagine you are asked to complete the statement ‘If I was Prime Minister for a day…’ what would you say?

It is a very interesting task. It gets you thinking big. It got me thinking big.

So in honour of International Women’s Day, 8 March 2019, I thought I would share with you my response to that statement and I encourage women, men and children to reflect on what they would say too. It can make all the difference to the choices we make in life and business.

In November 2014, I was invited by the then Federal Minister for Small Business, Bruce …

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Check the ‘Sales Fitness’ of your Sales System

By / / Sales Benchmarking, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Strategy, Systems Thinking

For those people who have been reading my work for some time know that in order to achieve peak sales fitness, now and in the long term, I advocate that business and sales leaders and their sales teams need to adopt a Systems approach to sales operational excellence in order to sell better, deliver competitive sales strategies that work, find new uncontested markets and at the same time minimising execution risk on the ground.

My persistence in promoting and advocating for a Systems approach to sales excellence is deliberate on every level because if we want to stay in business and …

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Is Consumerism past its use-by-date?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Optimism, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

This is a very interesting, perplexing and vexing question which is now being discussed at all levels of society.

This question is not only an economic and business question but, increasingly, a moral question challenging the very nature of how we make a living, how we make money and how we function as communities, economies and societies.

At this very point in our existence when anyone can reach almost everyone, everywhere, selling our wares and enticing people to buy, we, in the West at least, are confronted by the spectre of overconsumption, excessive waste with its environmental impacts and the ignominy of …

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Trust, financial institutions and the markets.

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Ethics & Values, Sales Trends, Selling Better

Sales Trend 2 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 touches on a very timely topic in Australia – trust and the financial sector.

By guest author David Robertson, Head of Economic and Market Research, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.

2018 has not been a good year for the stock prices of Australian financial institutions, with the ‘Financials’ sub-index of the ASX200 down over 16% from its high of 6621 in January. The rest of the market is also lower but not to the same extent –and the broader ASX200 index did reach a fresh ’18 peak recently in August …

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Sales Tips for everyday life situations

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Life Skills, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

Whether we are a salesperson or not, there are times in our daily lives when knowing how to sell well turns often awkward situations into positive outcomes for everyone.

We are social animals. We rely on others for our existence which means we need to engage with others in some way to be able to live effectively and have a meaningful existence.

Let’s look at the new school year as an example: there are often many new faces, new people to meet and people to interact with across the year whether you want to or not.

This means that people find …

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The rise of Ethical Selling in the new world order: The history of Sales Methodologies, revised & updated

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Selling Better, Solution Selling

Selling is a hot topic, especially the louder calls for more ethical, fairer, purpose driven business and selling practices. Given the recent findings from the Australian Banking Royal Commission and the emerging new world transparency highlighting various unethical, immoral and unsustainable business and sales practices across the collective value chain, the rise of an Ethical Purpose Driven Selling Methodology, as the new world order, is making its way into mainstream consciousness.

This got us revisiting our whitepaper, The History of Sales Methodologies – why some work and others don’t which we published in 2013. We wondered if there were enough significant …

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