Tendering and Trust

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Business Acumen, Communication, Sales Trends, Uncategorized

Sales trend 10 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 is about the importance of trust when writing tenders that win.

By guest authors David Lunn and Kelly Richmond, Bidwrite

Building BID BELIEVABILITY

Developing tenders and proposals is key to winning and retaining business through contested sourcing processes. Most buying organisations, government and commercial, use these types of processes in one form or another. So there really is no escaping the need to produce written communications to, at least in part, persuade a client or prospect to choose us.

Data emerging from the USA, …

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Want a viable future? Opportunities abound in the Common Good

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Case study, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

What type of board member, CEO or sales leader are you?

  • Are you stuck in the day-to-day looking to meet your monthly and quarterly targets, looking to maximise profit, shareholder return and your bonuses?
    OR
  • Are you looking into the future to see what lies ahead ensuring there is a viable sustainable path for all to follow and participate in?

    • In today’s world everything is up for grabs.

    Old institutions are crashing and dying because they held onto the past and failed to adapt.

    Take Thomas Cook Travel as a current case in point. While their leaders were bathing themselves in 29M pounds of bonuses, …

    Want a viable future? Opportunities abound in the Common Good Read Post »

    How prepared is ‘The Lucky Country’ for tough times?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Uncategorized

    Ah the good times…

    Ah 28 years of uninterrupted growth…

    Ah Australia, ‘The Lucky Country’*…

    Ah ‘How good is Australia?’…

    Pssst. But don’t talk about the R** word…

    We are indeed fortunate in Australia to have access to many resources, space, and talented people; however, our luck maybe running out if we carry on drinking the ‘recession avoidance’ Kool Aid, carry on with our old ways of managing business and thinking everything is rosy instead of adapting to the array of changes, challenges, and opportunities that are out there in the market place.

    Which is why I couldn’t go past economist Jim Stanford’s comments in Paddy …

    How prepared is ‘The Lucky Country’ for tough times? Read Post »

    2019 Sales Trends Event  – Trust me, I’m in Sales

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Procurement, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Sales Research, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Sustainability & Environment

    On 27 March 2019 we hosted our 7th Sales Trends Business Breakfast celebrating the 10th edition of the Barrett Annual 12 Sales Trends Report with Trust as our central theme.

    Over 120 people attended the event, mostly business people but we also had the Year 11 International Baccalaureate Student Representatives of the Melbourne Montessori School attend to further their knowledge and education as they study Business Management.

    The attendees heard from our special guest speakers, Suzanne Paynter, Strategy and Policy Advisor for the Future Business Council, and Andrew Smith, Head of Business Customer at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and myself, where we …

    2019 Sales Trends Event  – Trust me, I’m in Sales Read Post »

    The alarming findings about the Peter Principle & Sales Managers

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Coaching, Collaboration, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Talent

    Have you ever worked with someone who was really effective in one role but then promoted to other roles, usually management, and ended having no idea and no real capacity to fulfil that role in a competent manner?

    Chances are your answer is ‘yes’.

    This is a common occurrence in many organisations where people are continually promoted until they are no longer effective in their roles – basically they rise to their level of incompetence. This is referred to as the Peter Principle which was highlighted by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in 1969.

    Basically, the problem arises when the skills that makes someone …

    The alarming findings about the Peter Principle & Sales Managers Read Post »

    Want to find & own uncontested markets? Try Blue Ocean Strategy

    By / / Business Acumen, Competition, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy, Success

    In today’s cluttered business landscape and global marketplace, finding uncontested markets to sell into and own, free of competition, at least for the foreseeable future, is getting harder, and harder and harder.

    Developing innovative ideas that turn into something new, unique and viable, are not easy to copy, and deliver revenue and healthy margins is equally tough.

    Rethinking our marketplaces, our traditional customers and non-customers, and how we sell and deliver real value to them, that they are prepared to pay for, well that’s another difficult challenge too.

    Most businesses these days find that they are increasingly competing head to …

    Want to find & own uncontested markets? Try Blue Ocean Strategy Read Post »

    What are the biggest sales issues & opportunities for CEOs & Sales Leaders today?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Benchmarking, Sales Consulting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Strategy

    Since late 2014, we have been rolling out the Sales Strategy & Operations Audit working with a wide range of businesses across industries in the public, private, and N4P sectors to help them sell better.

    In 2017, we compiled the Barrett Sales Strategy & Operations Benchmark Report for 2015-2017 based on over 20 companies and found several trends emerging that are relevant across businesses and industries. We are also seeing this across many other businesses with or without the audit.

    Here is what we found:

    The biggest sales issues facing CEOs & Sales Leaders today:

  • Average or below average: Every business …

    • What are the biggest sales issues & opportunities for CEOs & Sales Leaders today? Read Post »

    Salespeople beware tire kickers, IP thieves & time wasters

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Coaching, Communication, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values

    Selling is a very time consuming set of activities at the best of times. Now with so much choice and complexity, sales cycles are taking even longer –like 20% longer– especially with multiple stakeholders in larger businesses.

    So it only makes sense that we want to be sure as salespeople that a real deal is in the offering, that it is properly budgeted for, and we are in good position to win it.

    Salespeople can often bend over backwards to please prospective clients, running around getting all sorts of things ready, and putting together comprehensive proposals to impress and persuade these prospective …

    Salespeople beware tire kickers, IP thieves & time wasters Read Post »

    Is an Organic Growth Strategy a better way to go?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Entrepreneurship, Performance Management, Sales Results, Strategy, Success

    How do I grow my business?

    How do I get a better ROI?

    How do I get more profitable sales?

    How do I attract and convert more customer?

    These are some of questions entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs and sales leaders ask on daily basis. And rightly so. We need to ask questions of ourselves and how we run our businesses so as to be appraised of the better ideas that serve our goals and ambitions.

    To keep me fresh, I like to read widely and most recently, while sitting on a plane to Sydney, I came across a very interesting McKinsey article about the various …

    Is an Organic Growth Strategy a better way to go? Read Post »

    Don’t die wondering, the real secret to sales success – Part II of II: the person

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Education in Sales, Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills, Prospecting, Resilience, Sales Skills, Solution Selling

    How many times have we all been tempted to click on a link that offers us ‘the secret of sales success’ only to find a website or article that is promising a silver bullet ‘if only you do this one thing’ which doesn’t help us at all?

    As I mentioned last week, the business of sales excellence is like the diet industry, full of tempting offerings that lead us nowhere fast.

    It is only natural that people want simple answers to complex problems. ‘The world would be so much easier if only…’ we sigh.

    However, “Explanations exist; they have existed …

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