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Striking Balance – Barrett’s 12 Sales & Business Trends for 2024

By / / Blog, Business Growth, Collaboration, Communication, Customer experience, Customer Service, Customer-centric, Digital credentials, Education in Sales, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Hybrid Selling, Leadership, Learning and Development, Opportunity, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Growth, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Methodology, Sales Operations, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Soft skills, Solution Selling, Strategy, Success, Value Based Selling

In December 2023 we published Barrett’s 12 Sales & Business Trends for 2024. This is a summary of that report, in case you missed it.

For decades, the business world has been dominated by what looked like opposites to choose from. You could be a hunter or a gatherer, a manager or a leader.

These concepts have been pitched to the business community as opposing and mutually exclusive choices, forcing a binary mindset. These polarisations don’t apply to modern businesses and sales operations – and they haven’t served us well for some time now.

In 2023 we’ve worked with businesses across industries and …

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strong-communication-builds-bridges

The Double-Edged Sword of Communication Tools

By / / Blog, Collaboration, Communication, Customer-centric, Human-centred, Soft skills

In 30 seconds

Tech is great, but it’s only as good as the people using it. That’s especially true for communication.

But wait, there’s a catch. Tools like Slack and Teams, while helpful, can cause information overload and misunderstandings. Constant messages, unclear chats, and brief texts lacking context can create a communication mess.

On top of that, company culture and our own communication styles can add to the problem. Unclear goals, fear of speaking up, and even hidden biases can make it hard to talk openly.

The good news? These challenges can be fixed.

Strong communication builds bridges, not walls.

In 2 minutes

Communication is the lifeblood …

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Putting humanity back on the corporate map

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Human-centred

It’s time we put humanity back on the corporate map

This was my core purpose when I started Barrett Consulting Group on 9th January 1995, and it still is today, 28 years later.

Prior to starting Barrett, I’d been in corporate for 11 years, giving my best, but feeling out of sorts, unsure about the purpose of business and sales. Something didn’t feel right.

I could see back in the late 1980s and early 1990s that business priorities were dramatically shifting:

  • People were being reduced to consumers with an overemphasis on profit maximisation, shareholder return, and reductionism at the expense of holistic systems, humans, …

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    cultivating-positivity-and-teams-leads-to-better-productivity-and-culture

    Cultivating Positive & Productive Sales Teams & Cultures

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Collaboration, Competition, Human-centred, Leadership, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales performance, Sales Results

    I want you to imagine a field sales team of 20 B2B salespeople, each of whom has their own well-defined sales territory (it could be industry-based or geographical, doesn’t matter) and sales targets. They have access to sales support and customer service. Every month this sales team, including sales support, meets (virtually and occasionally in person) to workshop their territory plans looking at what’s working and what’s not.

    These meetings are focused on moving forward and how to get better sales traction and deliver on results. Sure, each salesperson is required to enter their activities and deal progress in the CRM …

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    zoe daniel in front of crowd

    A Teal Test of Character

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Common Ground, Ethics & Values, Leadership, Sales Driven Organisations, Teamwork, Vision, Mission & Purpose

    As the saying goes “A crisis doesn’t develop character, it reveals character”.

    And there is nothing like leading and working on a political campaign to test one’s character.

    In early November 2021 I accepted the offer of becoming Zoe Daniel’s campaign manager for the seat of Goldstein at the 2022 Federal Election.

    I didn’t accept the offer lightly. Truth is I have never run a political campaign of any kind before, but when I thought about it, a political campaign is the ultimate example of an on-the-ground human-to-human sales led campaign and I have helped run many successful sales led campaigns before …

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    selfishness-is-not-next-to-godliness

    Selling can be an Act of Kindness

    By / / Blog, Collaboration, Common Ground, Selling Better

    Since I started my sales careers almost 40 years ago, I have met thousands and thousands of salespeople and sales leaders and I can tell you many stories about these encounters, but what I want to focus on today is what I believe to be the motivation driving the vast majority of these sales and service people and sales leaders: their desire to help people, their clients, be successful and do the right thing by them.

    Very few salespeople that I have met want take undue advantage of others, even when pressed to meet targets and hit budgets. Most salespeople are …

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    Human-Centred sales teams
    A game-changing strategy

    By / / Blog, Collaboration, Human-centred, Sales Culture, Sales Relationships, Sales Results, Sales System, Strategy, Success

    For too long sales has been seen (and promoted) as combative – us versus them – an arm wrestle on price and terms, a face-off as we sit opposite each other.

    What if I told you that doing the exact opposite would actually make selling and buying easier, quicker and more enjoyable for all concerned?

    Most people want relationships of all kinds, to be open, honourable, honest, productive, positive, and above all safe because this means we can concentrate on what’s important and get things done together.

    However, the more companies operate in the technical space, looking for technical solutions to sales challenges, …

    Human-Centred sales teams
    A game-changing strategy     Read Post »

    7 things you can do immediately to sell better now plus some extras

    By / / Blog, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Common Ground, Gratitude, Opportunity, Sales System, Strategy, Success, Trust

    In September 2019 I wrote an article “7 things you can do immediately to improve your sales results in challenging markets” and while a lot has happened since, the core elements of this advice remain true. However, given the advent of Covid and the many lessons learned since, I’d like to include and emphasise the virtues of Trustworthiness, Cooperation and Gratitude because they underpin good business.

    Many people’s perspectives and priorities have shifted in the last year beyond the mere matter of making money. They are closely examining their relationship to work, careers, each other …

    7 things you can do immediately to sell better now plus some extras Read Post »

    The Phenomenon that is #March4JusticeAU

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Gender & Sales, Teamwork, Wellbeing, women-in-sales

    We are all presented with opportunities every day in myriads of ways. Whether we choose to pursue an opportunity is dependent upon many things. When an opportunity of a lifetime presented itself to me on Monday 1 March I decided to jump in boots and all. Definitely a sliding door moment for me.

    This once in a lifetime opportunity was joining the March 4 Justice organising team at its inception.

    How did #March4JusticeAU burst onto the scene so quickly and how did it capture the attention of the nation as well as the international media?

    It started on Sunday 28 February 2021, when …

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    david-bowie-the-future-belongs-to-those-who-can-hear-it-coming

    Bowie & Me – 26 years on

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, Everybody lives by selling something, Innovation

    Blog Podcast

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    On 9th January 1995, the day after David Bowie’s 48th birthday, I started Barrett Consulting Group with $3,000 and a dream of doing something significant in the world of sales, service, human relationships, business, ethics, and sustainability, confident in my ability to sell, to learn, be helpful and find my way forward from there.

    Each year I revisit this milestone in my career. Each year I …

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