What’s your Elevator pitch?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Success

“So what do you do?”

How many times have you been asked that question? At a networking function, a business event, at a BBQ, in the elevator, anywhere?

How did you go answering the question?

You may have nailed it in a clear succinct sentence or like many people you may have stumbled, paused, gather your thoughts and then launched into a jumbled monologue about what you do and how you do it that ended up either boring your questioner or losing them in the details.

Sound familiar?

Many people find it difficult to articulate what they do in a simple easy to understand statement …

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Are you capitalising on your Prime Selling Time?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Prospecting, Sales Skills

If you watch successful sales people go about their daily business activities you will notice that they lead a very disciplined life – they know what they need to do each day and when they need to do these key activities. They make sure they make time for the important stuff and they hardly ever miss a beat. They know there is no excuse for not making prospecting calls or forgetting to do research.  There is no excuse for not getting proposals in on time or not scheduling client meetings in an organized fashion or forgetting to follow up when …

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Why the Web is making salespeople more, not less important

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Driven Organisations

Contrary to what the pundits say, the Web is making salespeople more, not less important. In December 2012, we published the 12 Sales Trends Report for 2013 and released a brief summary of each trend. This month we are focusing on the Sales Trend “Instant Access to Solutions”. The media is guilty of creating the propaganda around the demise of selling – propaganda that is not true. Too often a headline reports that buyers are turning to the Internet to do their shopping, leaving salespeople and companies out of …

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Writing, brain research and being a better salesperson

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Neuroscience in Sales

How does the act of writing affect your brain?* This is an interesting question that Rebecca Accadia, Barrett’s resident Organisational Psychologist, posed to us when she presented some research and facts she found on brain science thanks to Benjamin Starr. As highlighted in a previous post, Take Note, we emphasized the importance of taking notes in client meetings and why it is so important to our success as sales people. Now we have some brain science facts to back it up.  Here’s what Rebecca found and why we, as …

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7 differences between Sales and Marketing

By / / Business Acumen, Collaboration, Education in Sales, Marketing

If any business is going to thrive in the 21st century it’s vital that we all have a clear understanding of how Sales and Marketing can work effectively together in our businesses. For too long, there have been unfruitful turf wars between sales and marketing teams. For too long, too many people have been fooled into believing that ‘sales’ lives under marketing’s mandate. And for too long, too many people have been calling ‘selling’ marketing which it is not.

We need to redress these issues once and for all and properly define

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Why addressing Risk is 3 times more important than the benefits

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Education in Sales, Neuroscience in Sales, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills

Plenty of time and effort is put into talking up the benefits of our products and services in a selling situation. Sales people often focus on why the benefits are important to our clients and how our client will be better off if they buy from us, etc.  This has been the mainstay of sales for years. Think of all the time, effort and money that goes into meetings, brainstorming sessions, designing and creating glossy brochures and marketing materials (hard copy and virtual) to define and promote the benefits of what we do and offer. …

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Why ‘Point Solutions’ ruin sales operations

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Results

What is a Point Solution? A point solution solves one particular problem without regard to related issues. Point solutions are usually called for when there is a need to fix a specific problem or fast-track the implementation of a new service. Unfortunately, point solutions often don’t deliver meaningful or sustainable results. The sales training/consulting industry is littered with point solution providers, all promising ‘sales excellence in a box’ ranging from the latest selling style [1] you must adopt to a New York best seller book promising the golden nugget that will turn your sales around. When it comes to …

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Tips for using email and web leads effectively in sales

By / / Customer Service, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Skills, Social Sales

Sales can be made in several ways: face-to-face, over the phone, web-based, direct mail or via e-mail.  With the plethora of internet businesses now transacting sales online you’d be forgiven for thinking that you could dispense with sales people all together but in many instances you would be incorrect.  There are very few businesses that can run purely on the internet with no sales people interaction required.  At the very least these online businesses need customer service or ‘live chat’ enquiry centres where customers …

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