How to find more sales growth

By / / Sales Consulting, Sales Management, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips

Many companies in B2B sales are looking for more growth in their respective market segments; however, their sales and business leaders are still looking at their markets as whole segments rather than seeing and seizing the lucrative opportunities that micro segmentation can bring.

Without effective micro-segmentation, businesses risk missing niche or unique opportunities and/or needlessly increasing the cost of sales across the segment as a whole. To micro-segment a market effectively, you need to consider (at both the macro and micro levels) the size of each sales segment and the purchasing drivers of relevant customers. From …

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The Power of a Value Proposition

By / / Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Value Proposition & Value Add

Many businesses and their sales teams are finding that they -or more importantly what they offer- are being lumped into the same basket as their competitors with customers perceiving little difference between each supplier in their respective categories. Often researching online, customers trawl through website after website comparing the latest offerings, making up their own minds about who and what they want with little or no help of the supplier companies. This perceived similarity leads to one variable becoming the main point of difference and negotiation: …

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Sales Trend #3 – Are you ready for the Share Economy?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Sales Trends, Sustainability & Environment

Our Sales Trend #3 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2015 report is about the Share Economy. Here’s a snapshot of this trend.

One of the worst consequences of over-consumerism has been the exponential growth in the amount of goods that end up in landfills. This is the result of a combination of many factors such as consumers buying things that they don’t need for long—or even at all—and the manufacturing of cheap goods that break easily and are un-repairable, amongst others. On the other hand, consumerism has also meant that the …

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Warren Buffett’s wisdom and effective sales team

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations

How can we build effective sales teams for the short and long term?

This is the perennial question that has been asked by sales managers and business leaders for years.

The simple answer is bit by bit, over time by investing wisely in the right things.

Warren Buffett knows a thing or two about investing and his insights and wise counsel hold very true for building highly effective sales teams. Here are some of his famous quotes and how we see them in relation to building sales teams:

  • There are no bonus points for complicated investments. The truly big investment idea can usually be …

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    Some Social Selling Myths & Challenges

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Prospecting, Social Media, Social Sales

    Since LinkedIn started its publishing arm there has been a growing tsunami of articles filling our news feeds and inboxes. Amongst this flood of information are some great articles and, of course, there are those articles that are a waste of time. That’s to be expected. Within this tsunami there has been a range of articles promoting the astounding benefits of Social Selling, especially around writing and sharing content with prospects and clients as a critical part of the sales process. Articles that are sure to get you noticed and have clients contacting you so that you can make more …

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    Trend 2 – Retail: From app to brick-and-mortar

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Trends

    For a long time now we have been hearing how online retailers (or e-tailers) are killing the brick-and- mortar retail industry. Low performing retailers complain that the competition is unfair, since e-tailers have fewer expenses (they don’t need a central location for their store—if any at all, they need barely any staff, etc.). Another focus of the retailers’ complaints against online stores is that people use the brick-and-mortar shops to try-on, feel, and choose products and then buy online.

    So what happens when e-tailers decide to move into the brick-and-mortar space?

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    What if we sell better instead of only selling more?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Environment & Sustainability, Sales Results, Success, Sustainability & Environment

    What if we aimed to sell better instead of focusing on only selling more?

    At risk of giving every sales manager and business leader a coronary with this question, especially if we are running behind on our sales targets, I would like us to consider the following proposition.

    ‘Strive not to be the best company in the world, but the best company FOR the world’

    What if we took this approach to business?

    This is the philosophy of BCorps which is encouraging the proliferation of a new type of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. They …

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    What to do about badly informed buyers

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Procurement

    ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ is an 18th century saying that means a small amount of knowledge can mislead people into thinking that they are more expert than they really are.

    How true in today’s society.

    For example, the medical profession has warned people about their penchant for searching the Internet for symptoms of the ailments they feel that they have. Worse still is looking for the remedy without getting professional advice in some mistaken belief that if it appears as a result of a Google search, it must be true.

    It’s not that the information is essentially wrong – though …

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    How to avoid the ‘Race to the Bottom’ & mutual destruction

    By / / Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Research, Sales Trends

    The recent news about Coles and Woolworths being taken to task by the ACCC for their questionable dealings with suppliers has highlighted a major problem plaguing customer-supplier relationships.

    Barrett’s first Sales Trend for 2015 is ‘Race to the Bottom’ because of the drastic impact this unsustainable pricing strategy is having on sales and buyer relationships. Edward Rayner, a procurement specialist gave us important insights into this major issue and presented some important questions and strategies sales teams can employ to help avoid mutual destruction.

    Here are some of Rayner’s findings.

    A customer-supplier engagement strategy that …

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    12 Sales Trends Reports for 2015 – Transparency and The Middle Path – The Summary

    By / / Sales Culture, Sales Research, Sales Tips, Sales Trends

    The theme for Barrett’s Sales Trends for 2015 is ‘Transparency and the Middle Path’. This theme stems from the idea of everything in moderation and a new openness whether by choice or not.

    Over the years, salespeople and organisations have often focused solely on a single idea, shifting from one to the other as strategies proved ineffective. More recently, there has been a realisation that a more balanced approach (where a number of different aspects are given equal weighting) is potentially more appropriate and more effective for their businesses, especially in an increasingly complex world. This makes sense; however, it isn’t …

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