12 Sales Trends for 2019 – Trust me, I’m in sales

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Trust is a vital element in our lives and, as such, it has been studied and debated for centuries.

Trust is the belief that someone or something is honest and will not harm you, or that someone or something is safe and reliable. Trust is necessary to the ongoing wellbeing of societies including business.

For the purposes of this report, we have contained trust to the business environment.

We have chosen to use the definition of trust that has been promoted by the Harvard School of Business, which is that for trust to exist in any given situation the following 3 elements have …

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Sales trend 12 – Sales Coaching, at the core of sales success

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Coaching, Sales Coaching

The last sales trend of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about sales coaching.

In recent years, sales leadership coaching has continuously grown in acceptance by the managers involved in this task, as well as in its meaningful incorporation into the overall sales architecture of sales organisations. It has shifted from being an additional Learning & Development opportunity to becoming a central and critical part of the overall evolution modern sales operations are going through.

When sales management coaching first received broader recognition some two decades ago, it was regarded as a great opportunity to train salespeople in …

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Sales Trend 11 – Sales cycle taking longer (much longer)

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Procurement, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 11 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 explores the sales cycle and looks at the factors that are making it longer.

In a B2B environment, the sales cycle is usually defined as the days/ weeks/ months that pass from the first time a salesperson makes contact with a lead to the moment the client signs the contract. However, most definitions of ‘sales cycle’ have flaws because it’s nearly impossible to have one definition applicable to every business. Sales cycles vary enormously from industry to industry and organisation to organisation.

Regardless of what your definition of a …

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Sales Trend 10 – Storytelling, taking sales teams beyond features and benefits

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Brand & Reputation, Communication, Marketing

Guest Author: Rishad Sukhia, CEO, Creative Agency Brightlabs, Melbourne, Australia

Sales trend 10 from our 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about storytelling.

We all grew up hearing and sharing stories through childhood and adulthood – they help us learn, develop and, above all, they entertain and inspire us. Brands today are increasingly incorporating storytelling into their sales and marketing strategies in order to resonate with their customers.

This sales trend is focused on the increasing importance of the art and science of storytelling in sales and marketing, taking our sales teams beyond presenting features and benefits.

What is brand storytelling?

Whilst the terms …

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Sales Trend 9 – Personal Branding is a must have asset

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Social Media, Social Sales

Key terms: social media, consistency, engagement, results

Guest author: Josh Schmalenbach

Sales Trend 9 from our 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about social selling.

As technology and the internet have evolved, our access to information has also vastly grown. Never before has it been so easy to find out so much about a product or a person.

With a simple Google search, one can find pages of information regarding someone’s career, achievements, education, and even what they have shared online.

This ease of access to data has made the buying process significantly easier and less risky for everyone involved. The …

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Sales Trend 6: Moving CX & HX – really it’s all about people now

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Customer Service, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Strategy

Sales Trend 6 of Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends for 2018 is about the ‘human experience’ in businesses and sales.

The terms Customer Experience and Customer Centric have been around for some time. These terms are now referred to in shorthand as CX. Now a new term is emerging – HX, the Human Experience.

What does all this mean? Aren’t they the same thing?

This sales trend explores the terms CX and HX and helps put into perspective the old and the new when it comes to creating a competitive winning edge in sales and business.

Let’s look at some definitions first:

In commerce, customer …

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Sales Leadership – the power of preparedness, curiosity and courage in times of flux

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Sales Leadership, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 7 from the Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about leadership, in particular, which characteristics are key for leaders in times of flux.

The state of flux we are experiencing, is bringing about a shift in the top key qualities required to be an effective business executive and leader.

It’s not necessarily a completely different set of qualities, but a change in their order of relevance for navigating a changing, ‘fluxy’ kind of world.

Douglas A. Ready, a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the founder and president of ICEDR, says “We need to …

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How Sales and Marketing can excel in a world in flux

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Marketing, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Sales Trends

In this sales trend from the Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018, David Hubbard explains what sales and marketing can do working together to excel at generating revenue.

Who’s in flux? The Buyer. They have dramatically changed how they identify, evaluate and purchase solutions over the past 10 years, and they continue to evolve. Every member of the buyer team for B2B and considered B2C purchases has instant mobile access to the information they need throughout each stage of their purchasing process.  Even when they are fully engaged with us, they are constantly interacting with our competitor’s information.

As a …

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Sales Trend 4: Buyer Behaviours, AI & the Future of Sales Roles

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Customer Service, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 4 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about buyer behaviours and the future of sales roles.

According to Gartner Research, by 2020 85% of interactions between businesses will be executed without human interaction. [i]

Automation has already diminished the number of people required for blue collar manufacturing roles; however, with the advent of AI (artificial intelligence), big data and algorithms, we are beginning to see sweeping changes happening across the once untouchable white collar sector, including the very people-oriented roles of sales, as many buyers shift part or all of their buying journey …

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Sales Trend 3: Human Centred Selling – designing Empathetic Customer Centric Cultures

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Collaboration, Communication, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Sales Culture, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 3 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about Human Centred Selling.

Bestselling author and business icon Stephen Covey once said: “When you show deep empathy toward others … That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems”.

In this hyper connected world it’s easy to gain access to information and make simple online purchases that are transactional in nature; items that we know how to use ourselves. However, today there is so much information and so many choices available that many customers are finding making buying decisions overwhelming, especially when things move beyond the …

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