Make Sales Coaching THE priority & coach your way to success

By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management

What sales leader wouldn’t like to see shortened sales cycles leading to more comprehensive deals with better margins? These are just some of the benefits of effective sales coaching. ‘Make coaching THE priority and coach your way to sales success’ was voted the second most important sales trend for 2012 from The 12 Sales Trends of 2012 by our readers. This comes at a critical time for business. Selling is now a highly skilled role requiring skilful people to execute sales strategy, win new clients, grow and retain existing …

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Move Over Marketing Here Comes Sales Strategy!

By / / Marketing, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Strategy, Success

The pundits (including Barrett) are always reminding sales executives of the need to plan. However, a major miscalculation made by many organisations is viewing their sales operations as purely tactical functions. The result – at best, sales plans become little more than operational imperatives bumping along one quarter to the next with no strategic intent.

More and more, the high cost of selling, longer lead times and the multitude of choice that customers have – coupled with rampant (and often aggressive and diversifying) competition, diminishing product differentiation and …

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Turning Underperformers Into Sales Winners

By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results, Sales Training

Underperforming sales people plague sales managers and organisations in every industry sector. Over the decades business leaders have adopted an assortment of tactics to combat and address this issue, with most showing little in return. Some large businesses have a policy to let go of the bottom 10-20% of sales performers each year and replenish with new sales blood. Other organisations are too slow to address the real issues affecting poor sales performance often tolerating incompetence. Neither strategy is useful, leaving people operating in a climate of fear or mediocrity. …

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It’s Not WHAT You Do But WHY & HOW You Do It

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Mindful selling, Sales Culture

In December 2011 we published The 12 Sales Trends of 2012 and invited readers to vote on what they thought would be the most important trends in sales for this year. ‘It’s not WHAT you do but WHY & HOW you do it’ topped the rankings.

It seems that having a Purpose, the WHY, which is more than just making a profit, is becoming a key focus as businesses, leaders and employees alike seek to find more meaning in their work and each other and most importantly their …

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Athletes Chase Olympic Gold in UK and Business Success Back Home

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Skills, Success

It’s an Olympic year and many of our elite athletes are rightly focusing their efforts on the London 2012 Olympic Games. There are a certain number of gold medals on offer and everyone knows their worth in terms of the honour and glory and even more so in terms of ensuing publicity, product endorsements, speaking engagement and the like.

However, with limited gold medals available, pure focus on winning one will leave many athletes short-changed if they have nothing in reserve. Smart athletes leave nothing to chance. Just like good sales people and business owners they …

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No Sales Leadership + No Accountability = No Sales Results

By / / Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Success

Companies spend billions each year on sales training, organisational development, leadership training and other efforts to ultimately boost sales results. Often this is a waste of money because nothing changes for the better. Too busy looking for a short term boost, magic bullet or quick fix, i.e. the 1-3 day motivational sales training event, many business and sales leaders miss the vital point that sales training, more correctly termed sales fitness and evolution, is a long term investment. Smart business …

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Celebrating ‘Clarity’ After 17 Years In Business

By / / Uncategorized

This year I am celebrating ‘Clarity’ as my cornerstone in business. I believe Clarity is the most important idea in any business. Vision, strategy, purpose, product, plans, people and all factors of successful business stem from clarity.

 

It has taken me many (frustrating) years to clarify and define my true goals and intentions when I launched Barrett Consulting Group, 17 years ago on Monday 9 January 1995. With just $3,000 as my seed capital, a home office with phone and computer and an idea based purely on a strong feeling, a hunch and passion, I …

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Make 2012 The Best Year Yet – Put Yourself First!

By / / Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, Success, Teamwork

As we all come sailing in from the rather stormy seas of 2011 for a brief rest in a safe harbour we can chose to look back and reflect on what has happened in 2011; the challenges, mistakes, triumphs and lessons learned. Although reflection is very important we must not forget to take time to rest, relax and recharge before we look forward and dream about the future and what it holds for us.

2011 may have left you feeling overwhelmed running from one task to the other never stopping to rest and recoup. If you can take time to just …

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Why LinkedIn Invitations Need To Be Purposeful

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Social Media

LinkedIn is about creating and nurturing relationships. It’s a marvelous tool for researching and connecting with people and helps you forge genuine relationships based on substance and value. I’ve been on LinkedIn for many years now and have been steadily growing my network. I only connect with people I know personally or have connected with via an event or activity. As much as I am for prospecting and building new networks and business I draw the line at sending out impersonal LinekdIn requests, random or otherwise to people that I don’t know.

So why do so many …

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Getting Personal Or Time To Get Personal

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Customer Service, Sales Relationships

‘Getting Personal’ was voted as the Number 12 Sales Trends for 2011. Despite the advances in technology and the rise of the Internet, customers still want personal and single contact satisfaction. Contrary to some pundits who believe the role of salespeople is becoming obsolete with the proliferation of Internet and mobile technology, effective sales professionals and a personal approach to selling remains important to successful business this year and in the years to come. Smart salespeople are offloading functional and transactional activities to better concentrate …

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