Getting your sales perspective in 2015

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills, Value Based Selling

Perspective Taking is a critical life skill that can serve us well no matter what role we are in.

Perspective Taking is also a vital sales skill if we want to develop viable relationships with clients, influence people to consider and buy our offerings, grow sales and lead successful sales careers.

What is Perspective Taking?
Perspective Taking is the act of viewing a situation, or understanding a concept, from an alternate point-of-view. Perspective Taking is the process of temporarily suspending one’s own point-of-view in order to view a situation as someone else might. This process does not necessitate any form of affinity, …

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20 years of improving sales teams & operations. What’s changed?

By / / Collaboration, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, CRM, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Social Media, Vision, Mission & Purpose

The 9th January 2015 marks 20 years in business for Barrett Consulting Group.

Twenty years of helping companies, sales leaders and their salespeople improve their sales operations and their sales capabilities.

Twenty years of helping salespeople and buyers have better, more mutually rewarding experiences, setting a fairer exchange of value.

As I moved toward this 20th anniversary, I started to muse upon what the sales world was like 20 years ago, compared to what it is like now. Here are just some of my initial musings and observations.

A lot has changed in the sales world over the last 20 years, some changes for …

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Sales Trend 12 – The Enlightened Sales Person

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Communication, Sales Relationships, Sales Trends, Uncategorized

As the year comes to a close so do we present the 12th and final Sales Trend for 2014. This sales trend is seeing a new kind of salesperson emerging in our midst. Not common by any stretch of the imagination, but appearing in businesses slowly but surely. Smart companies are becoming aware that they need a new kind of salesperson, especially at the higher levels of business. The days of the flashy, aggressive, all talking ‘pitch master’ , or ‘you’re my mate’ schmoozer are fading fast from most industries with only …

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Does ‘Gratitude’ belong in B2B sales?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Life Skills, Sales Relationships

I have been thinking about how salespeople and others who are responsible for bringing in new business to their organisations feel when they get heartfelt thanks and feedback from their clients for a job well done.

The sort of feedback that actually tells the salesperson that they really made a difference to that client’s situation, life or business; that the client was grateful to have worked with them because they are better off with them than without them; that the client really appreciated the efforts that the salesperson made to make the most of the situation.

I know how I feel when …

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Top 13 Sales Issues for businesses in 2014

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results

As we get close to our celebration of 20 years in business we thought we would share with you the most common and critical sales problems that are affecting sales teams large and small, across all sorts of markets and industries in 2014. Here they are:

  • Businesses not making sales quota overall
  • Not enough salespeople making quota
  • Win/lose ratio unacceptably low
  • Deals taking too long to close
  • Leads/sales ratio too low
  • Not getting enough client meetings
  • Margins being squeezed
  • Chasing poorly qualified leads
  • Not engaging with decision makers
  • Salespeople not able to engage effectively at C level
  • Salespeople not understanding the client’s perspective
  • Too much discounting
  • Losing deals on price

    • The list contents may …

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    Why the world of Selling is changing forever

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Education in Sales, Sales Trends, Value Based Selling

    Hanging on the old Product Selling paradigm is precisely the way to go out of business in the 21th Century.
    You can see it happening as organisations everywhere undergo breathtaking changes. Their products are changing. Their markets are changing. Their customers are changing. Their leadership management philosophies are changing. Their values are changing. Their focus is changing.

    Now, more than ever before the accepted ways of doing business are shifting. Old institutions are crashing and dying. Trusted names of yesterday will not live to see the future. Why? Because many of them failed to keep pace with changing consumer demands, values …

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    Don’t be fooled! Why telephone prospecting is still critical to sales success

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Prospecting, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Solution Selling

    In tough markets when sales are harder to come by whether it be from increased competition or clients being more hesitant to commit and buy, don’t become your own worst enemy and rely on the marketing efforts of your company or emails or falling into the trap of believing the hype about Social Selling saving your sales day. You still need to get on the phone and engage the people in your market places whom you want and need to get in front of and sell to.

    After more than 30 years in selling with at least 10-15 years of those …

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    Sales Trend 11 – Learning to sell in the Asian Century

    By / / Sales Trends, Success

    In Australia, we are more reliant upon China for our prosperity than any comparable economy, at more than one quarter of our exports. We are China’s number one destination for foreign investment and a leading beneficiary of the education aspirations of its growing middle class. Yet many of us remain deeply ambivalent about the world-changing economic transformation of China and underestimate our need to be prepared. That is why the 11th Sales Trend for 2014 is Learning to Sell in the Asian Century.

    After an economic growth (over the last thirty years) of …

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    The Power of Powerless Communication in Selling

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours

    In his bestselling book, ‘Give and Take, a revolutionary approach to success’ organisational psychologist, Professor Adam Grant highlights the differences between Givers, Takers and Matchers and shatters our assumptions about what it takes to be successful in business and in life.

    As someone who has been studying and researching salespeople and sales leaders for more than 25 years I am fascinated by the contents of Grant’s book. I have found it both illuminating and validating.

    As many of you who read my posts regularly will know, I stand by the edict that effective selling is about the …

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    My one wish for all sales teams is …

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Training, Self Development, Solution Selling

    My one wish for sales teams is that they are given the opportunity to continue to learn and develop in a dynamic learning environment where learning, reflection and constant iterations in their behaviour and skills are a regular, daily way of life. Those businesses create, what we call at Barrett, a Perpetual Learning Environment (PLE) where learning is integrated into everything we do and is a daily way of life not just a training event held once a year.

    Sounds idyllic, fanciful even, well there is a body of work emerging that shows there are significant …

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