Are your sales conferences pumping or slumping?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Brand & Reputation, Collaboration, Communication, Sales Conference, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Teamwork

*** Trigger Warning: May contain traces of sarcasm ***

We’ve all been there: a sea of people, pulled together from across the country or region, locked in a windowless room with artificial light, seated at round tables with mints and water, patiently waiting for the parade of presenters to finish their ‘Death by PowerPoint’ presentations so we can get to the coffee station during the day and then the bar at night to start really engaging with our colleagues. During the day some relief can be found in the smartphones that everyone will be less and less discreetly looking at repeatedly, …

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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 …

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Cringeworthy: how arrogance and ‘seniority’ destroy sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Sales Meetings, Sales Talent

Here is a senior manager’s account of a real life, cringeworthy example of when a so called ‘experienced’ senior consultant completely stuffs up a prospective client meeting despite the young graduate, a millennial from the vendor’s company, sitting in the meeting with them instinctively knowing better and trying to do the right thing by the client and the company:

“One of the graduates from our team went out with a senior consultant on a prospective client meeting. Throughout the meeting the senior consultant was ignoring the prospective client and just trying to push one of our products. The graduate, …

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Why you shouldn’t let rudeness lead to the ruination of business and sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Communication, Customer Service, Ethics & Values, Life Skills, Presentation & Grooming, Sales Relationships, Self Development, Wellbeing

In the midst of the trend and hype of ‘customer centricity’, ‘the customer experience (CX)’, ‘customer excellence’ and other such terms it appears there is something amiss – the rise and rise of rudeness, incivility, disrespectful behaviour, and the trend of behaving badly at work.

This is not a new phenomenon; however, it is reaching epic proportions and affecting many businesses, their staff, customers and suppliers as we speak with devastating consequences.

Ray Williams writing for ‘Psychology Today’ back in October 2016 said this: “Has incivility become the new norm in America? Fundamental ethical values such as respect, fairness, honesty, personal responsibility …

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The Science of Persuasion

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Sales Psychology

Forget dictatorships, command and control style approaches, persuasion has a lot more going for it when it comes to better sales, better relationships, better team work, better business outcomes and long term change in actions and behaviour.

The term persuasion is most commonly associated with sales people. And there’s a good reason for that. If we consider the Business Dictionary definition of persuasion, “process aimed at changing a person’s (or a group’s) attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s), by using written or spoken words to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination of them”, it …

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Why manners & courtesy are vital for successful selling, businesses & societies

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

Sometimes, the seemingly trivial daily acts we perform are the most important. Courtesy is but one example.

For instance, while driving your car, do you ever want to switch lanes but are prevented from changing by the heavy traffic? How do you feel when someone, recognising your problem, slows down, waves to you and lets you in? Your mounting frustration is likely to instantly transform into relief and thankfulness. You probably raise your hand as a sign of thanks and change lanes. Later, when you see someone else in a similar situation, do you also slow down and let them in? …

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The power of language and intent in Sales & Coaching

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Coaching, Communication, Neuroscience, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Psychology

For the last 5 weeks I have been working around Australia helping a major client get their sales leadership team ready to roll out their new Sales Strategy and Sales Process, their version of ‘the way we sell around here’. It’s been pretty exciting and extremely well received. Why? The language we are using is clear, simple, strong and positive. Our intent is purposeful and inspiring. There is a compelling reason to want to be a part of this new era. People can see a clear pathway forward.

Part of this sales strategy and sales process roll out …

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Sales Trend 3 – Selling is everybody’s business

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 3 of Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends for 2016 is Selling is everybody’s business.

For a long time businesses have been focusing on how to achieve better sales results. Organisations with varying levels of maturity and insight have embarked on many different journeys to get there. Some have been very savvy and have taken a holistic systems approach putting in place sound sales strategies, market segmentation plans underpinned by clear sales processes, standards and values that inform their sales teams. Some organisations tried other alternatives, with varied levels of success, from good training systems to silver bullet solutions that …

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How do we spot new trends, drive innovation and sell better?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Innovation, Self Development

Recently, the Australian Prime Minster, Malcolm Turnbull urged and encouraged Australians to be more creative, develop new opportunities and drive innovation to grow our economy and secure a better economic future for us.

That’s all well and good but how do we spot new trends, drive innovation, and sell better so as to secure our future?

There will be many variables to consider in each of our answers to this question; however, there are three core things we need to master if we want to spot and create trends before anyone else does, if we want to get ahead of the curve, …

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Why everybody benefits from knowing how to prospect

By / / Communication, Education in Sales, Prospecting, Sales Skills

Every business needs to prospect for new clients and customers, even non salespeople often need to reignite past business relationships and form new ones, internally or externally. You don’t need to be the primary salesperson or business development manager to be required to prospect well. Any call you make to another person whose attention you need to grab and focus on what you have to offer or propose is technically a prospecting call.

Prospecting is the identification and pursuit of new opportunities.

In sales, it is the pursuit of new business opportunities in either new or existing accounts.

In other …

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