Our Fragility Has Been Exposed. Now What?

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Buying, covid-19, Environment & Sustainability, Procurement

Sales trend 2 from the 12 Sales Trends for 2021 Report is about what Procurement can do to help businesses become thrivers and survivors.

By guest author Ben Shute, CEO of Comprara

For Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report last year, my article – We change, or we burn – argued that the Bronze Age collapse was a warning we should heed. Due to the complex logistical nature of the procurement process behind the production of bronze, the world of the Bronze Age was highly interconnected and interdependent. A drought in the Indus Valley, for instance, …

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Has coronavirus made us more ethical consumers?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Buying, covid-19, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Sustainability & Environment

The pandemic has heightened our awareness about how we live, work, engage and consume.

But has it made us more ethical consumers?

Before we answer that question let’s first define what an ethical consumer is:

Ethical consumerism is a form of political activism based on the premise that purchasers in markets consume not only goods but also, implicitly, the process used to produce them. (Brittanica)

In other words, as ethical consumers we should be looking at the whole supply chain from sourcing of materials, to manufacturing, distribution and how we purchase, use, and dispose of our goods to see if it has …

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sigh-we-really-want-to-help-you

Dear prospects – salespeople are not mind readers

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Buying, Prospecting

Dear (certain) prospects,

We, as most businesses, put a lot of work into making it easy for you to find us when you are in need of our services, and rejoice when you contact us. We are ready to help you -or at least, find out IF we can help you- but alas, we are not mind readers.

To assess whether we can help you or not, we first need your help – we need you to answer our questions.

So when having reached out to us, you act cryptic or scarce with your information, despite us asking you effective questions, we can’t …

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barrett-sales-trend-6-what-are-we-selling-now-in-a-post-consumerism-world

What are we selling now in a post-consumerism world?

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Buying, Environment & Sustainability, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

Sales Trend 6 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2020 explores the issues around consumerism, waste, and the role of sales in a post-consumerism world.

This is a condensed version of Sales Trend 6, to read the original version you can download the report for free.

What are we selling now?

Consumerism has been the main driver of economic growth and business performance, lifting people out of poverty since the late 1940s which saw many millions of people get access to amazing innovations in products and services that make their lives much more …

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Gratitude and Materialism

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Buying, Common Ground, Emotional Intelligence, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Life Skills, Sustainability & Environment

Practising gratitude has made me focus on other matters and much less on material things. I have found that I am far less worried about ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ or experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out). I think less about things and more about people.

There is a place for materialism in our world. I appreciate nice things. I am not an ascetic who disavows material goods or worldly possessions. But I don’t feel the need to strive for them madly. I also understand and appreciate how materialism works as a driver for so much of …

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The Holy Trinity of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Buying, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Solution Selling

This post has been inspired by my colleague, Ben Shute, who I work arm in arm with bridging the divide between sales and procurement. He wrote about the Holy Trinity of Procurement Skills and so challenged me to do the same for Sales.

Here is my contribution.

The profession of selling requires a whole range of capabilities. It’s hard to know where to begin to define the 3 core elements for sales – the Holy Trinity of Selling.

So I’ll start with the master categories of Knowledge, Skills and Mindset from Barrett’s Sales Competency Dictionary.

Knowledge

Let’s …

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How to make informed Buying & Voting decisions in a sea of Biased & Fake News

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Buying, Ethics & Values, Life Skills

In a world filled with so many opportunities, choices and facts there are also equal amounts, if not more, of biased news, fake news and fads, which now make it that much harder to make sound decisions, buy or purchase anything or vote with confidence.

The internet and, more specifically, social media is flooding us with so much information that it is screwing up with what I call ‘our bat radar’ – our ability to make informed decisions about whatever is important to us.

Many people are vying for our attention, our spend and our votes. And it seems many will do …

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