Selling Professional Services

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Tips, Success

Even the once exclusive professions of accounting, medicine, law and engineering have come to realise that they can no longer survive on referrals and reputation alone; that marketing the firm, whilst it stimulates awareness and interest, is not enough to generate the levels of new business needed to cover the costs of running a professional practice.

Decades ago these professionals relied on their network of referrals. They developed a reputation amongst a select group of their friends that made them an attractive option that brought business to their door. Those days and that situation has however changed.

Today, with universities turning out …

Selling Professional Services Read Post »

How to avoid the discount trap

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

Do you frequently discount to win business? Does your brand seem to matter less to customers today? It’s no wonder. Customers can do a Google search of your product or service and, within minutes, learn about your product, your competitors, what customers think of you, and find the lowest prices. So, with this kind of information at their fingertips, why would they need to meet with a salesperson?

It’s a critical question in today’s selling environment – and one you need to think about if you want to sell better.

In recent observations done by Barrett we noticed a …

How to avoid the discount trap Read Post »

Why self-discipline and being organised pays

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Self Development, Success

Being organised makes good dollars and cents.

To be on track with your sales quota you need to be organised, have a plan you stick to, and use a system for effective selling.

It’s never too late to start, regardless of where you are on the road towards realising your sales targets. All it really takes is some thought and self-discipline to organise yourself.

Probably the single biggest reason we see sales executives struggle to make sales targets is simply a lack of organisation or discipline to stick to a system of selling. We are not talking about a formula, but rather the …

Why self-discipline and being organised pays Read Post »

Why online prospecting is often lazy and very annoying

By / / Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Social Sales

This week’s article comes off the back of last week’s topic ‘ Getting prospects to talk to you’.

It will take a different approach. I have documented the conversation John Smibert and I had in relation to online prospecting. Here it is. Enjoy.

John: “…I was thinking that subject to the particular company, products and industry that maybe a phone call is not always the first contact these days. The reason this came to mind is that with the advent of social selling many salespeople are having considerable dialog with potential customers before making a phone call – many are …

Why online prospecting is often lazy and very annoying Read Post »

Getting prospects to talk to you

By / / Call Reluctance, Education in Sales, Prospecting, Sales Skills, Sales Tips

Do you take time to really think about why you are calling a prospect or a client?  Do you reflect on how effective you have been post the call?

Making prospecting calls to new prospects and existing clients is still one of the most important sales and business development activities you can do on a daily basis.  Even with all the electronic communication and marketing options at hand most businesses still need to have someone prospecting for them to build and forge real business relationships. Top performing salespeople make sure prospecting is part of their daily repertoire.

Prospecting …

Getting prospects to talk to you Read Post »

2016 Sales Trend 11 – The Renaissance Sales Manager

By / / Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 11 for our 12 Sales Trends Report for 2016 is The Renaissance Sales Manager.

The logic follows that senior executives determine the Grand Strategy for the entire business, divisional executives determine what strategy they need for the segments they service so as to make the grand strategy work, and then sales managers need to deploy, direct and control the sales resources to make the strategy(ies) happen. Sales managers should play a pivotal role in making strategy happen and delivering results.

Yet, for some time now where big data has been, and still is, a big focus …

2016 Sales Trend 11 – The Renaissance Sales Manager Read Post »

What is Social Selling? And does it work?

By / / Marketing, Social Sales

Social selling is not a new phenomenon as many might think.

Social Selling has been around for many years in various forms and is the process of developing one-on-one relationships as part of the sales process. Today, this often takes place via digital social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; however, it can take place both online and offline.

Social Selling is most widely used in B2B selling, especially in complex sales, but it is also used in more complex B2C sales environments, e.g. financial advisory services, automotive, real estate.

Social Selling is sometimes confused with social marketing but they are …

What is Social Selling? And does it work? Read Post »

Why we need Progressive Approximation to design an effective sales strategy

By / / Sales Leadership, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Strategy

In the world of big data, the abundance of information, complex systems and the need to use good judgement to make sound decisions, many people, often overwhelmed by too many variables, default to single moments of truth, black and white solutions, and the promise of the ‘right’ answer in an attempt to solve the challenges they face.

It’s understandable that we want simple answers. Our brains love ‘simple’ because it is energy efficient and comforting. Once we have ‘the answer’ we don’t have to think, we can just do.

Looking for ‘simple’ in business is at best lazy and, at worst, very …

Why we need Progressive Approximation to design an effective sales strategy Read Post »

What you need to drive your sales strategy

By / / Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Culture, Sales Strategy, Strategy

The frequently used business model of having sales under marketing, and therefore not having a separate sales strategy is no longer effective in today’s complex market place.

Sales strategies developed by non-sales driven executives tend to be little more than tactical ways to support the marketing drive, brand equity, corporate philosophy and/or the value/volume targets. Most organisations could have survived like this in a product focused 20th century world, but not anymore.

Today, selling is much more complex than just getting business (new or incremental).

Sales now has to re-examine its mission. It has to unshackle itself from marketing, …

What you need to drive your sales strategy Read Post »

Scroll to Top