The key to opening more sales opportunities

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Networking

The advent of the digital revolution and social networks had a huge impact in the number of people we are connected to. Now, I encourage us all to take a moment to think about the people we know personally. Imagine how many people that involves – just one degree away from us. Then think again about 2 or 3 degrees away and the numbers are astronomical.

Many of us have heard about the 6 degrees of separation concept which says that we are all only 6 people away from everyone else in the world. Well, with digital networks …

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Sales Trend #3 – Are you ready for the Share Economy?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Sales Trends, Sustainability & Environment

Our Sales Trend #3 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2015 report is about the Share Economy. Here’s a snapshot of this trend.

One of the worst consequences of over-consumerism has been the exponential growth in the amount of goods that end up in landfills. This is the result of a combination of many factors such as consumers buying things that they don’t need for long—or even at all—and the manufacturing of cheap goods that break easily and are un-repairable, amongst others. On the other hand, consumerism has also meant that the …

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20 years of improving sales teams & operations. What’s changed?

By / / Collaboration, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, CRM, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Social Media, Vision, Mission & Purpose

The 9th January 2015 marks 20 years in business for Barrett Consulting Group.

Twenty years of helping companies, sales leaders and their salespeople improve their sales operations and their sales capabilities.

Twenty years of helping salespeople and buyers have better, more mutually rewarding experiences, setting a fairer exchange of value.

As I moved toward this 20th anniversary, I started to muse upon what the sales world was like 20 years ago, compared to what it is like now. Here are just some of my initial musings and observations.

A lot has changed in the sales world over the last 20 years, some changes for …

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Sales Trend 12 – The Enlightened Sales Person

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Communication, Sales Relationships, Sales Trends, Uncategorized

As the year comes to a close so do we present the 12th and final Sales Trend for 2014. This sales trend is seeing a new kind of salesperson emerging in our midst. Not common by any stretch of the imagination, but appearing in businesses slowly but surely. Smart companies are becoming aware that they need a new kind of salesperson, especially at the higher levels of business. The days of the flashy, aggressive, all talking ‘pitch master’ , or ‘you’re my mate’ schmoozer are fading fast from most industries with only …

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Why the world of Selling is changing forever

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Education in Sales, Sales Trends, Value Based Selling

Hanging on the old Product Selling paradigm is precisely the way to go out of business in the 21th Century.
You can see it happening as organisations everywhere undergo breathtaking changes. Their products are changing. Their markets are changing. Their customers are changing. Their leadership management philosophies are changing. Their values are changing. Their focus is changing.

Now, more than ever before the accepted ways of doing business are shifting. Old institutions are crashing and dying. Trusted names of yesterday will not live to see the future. Why? Because many of them failed to keep pace with changing consumer demands, values …

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How Selling can be an act of Kindness

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Life Skills, Mindful selling, Sales Relationships

Since I started Barrett in January 1995, I have met thousands and thousands of salespeople and sales leaders and whilst I can tell you many stories about these encounters the one thing I can say is that the motivation driving the vast majority of these sales and service people, and sales leaders is the desire to help people, their clients, be successful and do the right thing by them.

Very few people that I have met want to harm or take undue advantage of others, even when pressed to meet targets …

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Coming full circle & the ripple effect of doing good

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration

Have you ever wondered what the ripple effect of your actions has on other people, things and systems way down the line or beyond your immediate world?

Often in sales we are very focused on the person in front of us; the immediate client, the immediate transaction or result. In business we often focus on the bottom line, the markets, the ROI (return on investment).  All important of course for success in business and sales; however, I would like to focus our attention on what happens when we do good things whether they be for profit …

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7 differences between Sales and Marketing

By / / Business Acumen, Collaboration, Education in Sales, Marketing

If any business is going to thrive in the 21st century it’s vital that we all have a clear understanding of how Sales and Marketing can work effectively together in our businesses. For too long, there have been unfruitful turf wars between sales and marketing teams. For too long, too many people have been fooled into believing that ‘sales’ lives under marketing’s mandate. And for too long, too many people have been calling ‘selling’ marketing which it is not.

We need to redress these issues once and for all and properly define

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Never ask a customer what they want

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration

Do not ask customers what they want when it comes to creating and introducing new technology and innovations. Why? Because according to leading voice on innovation, Scott Anthony, MD of Innosight Asia Pacific, ‘customers lie all the time… not intentionally of course, but because they cannot tell you what they want in terms of new technology, especially disruptive technology until it is in front of them.’  If you don’t know what you don’t know, how can you know what you want?

These are just some of the conversations taking place at the Ci2012 Creative Innovation conference ‘Wicked …

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Seeing with New Eyes

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Sustainability & Environment, Teamwork, Uncategorized

Joel Barker, a Futurist, has been a favourite thinker of mine for many years. His way of seeing the world with new eyes, his openness to possibility has inspired me to dream and explore the world. In times of unprecedented change we can be forgiven for feeling scared or worried. We can find ourselves looking backwards at the ‘good ‘ol days’ instead of forwards. We can feel closed to opportunity instead of seeing new possibilities as liberating.

Rather than dwell on the past and become nostalgic I propose we breathe deeply and take a look into the future to see what …

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