Prioritising Your Prospective Buyers

By / / Education in Sales, Prospecting, Sales Planning, Sales Tips, Uncategorized

Every salesperson has a territory.  Whether that “territory” is defined by geography or demography, horizontally or vertically in terms of market segmentation, or by product, sales people need to be able to prioritise their prospects and their prospecting activities and efforts. We only have a finite time everyday to find and make sales.  If we are clear about what we offer, how it is of value to our clients and know where and how we find these prospective buyers, selling and buying is much easier. An important …

Prioritising Your Prospective Buyers Read Post »

Sales Trend 1: Sales Management will look to drive costs out of sales

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Management, Sales Trends

Since 2009 we have been publishing our Annual 12 Sales Trends reports. It has been very interesting to see the speed at which these trends are taking hold and becoming the new normal in business.  For instance, when reviewing the 12 Sales Trends for 2013 you can see hard evidence of these trends in mainstream practice. So let’s see what is in store for us in 2014. Here is the first Sales Trend for 2014 – Sales Management will look to drive costs out of …

Sales Trend 1: Sales Management will look to drive costs out of sales Read Post »

12 Sales Trends for 2014 – The Thinking Sales Organisation

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Research

As 2013 comes to a close we firstly wanted to thank all our loyal readers for their continued support of our work. We also thought you would like to get a sneak peek of our Annual 12 Sales Trends Report for 2014. With the unprecedented changes we are experiencing as a result of the digital revolution and the commoditisation of quality we can no longer manage sales by processes and numbers alone – it’s become a thinking person’s game.   As a result, the Barrett Consulting Group’s annual Sales Trends Report for 2014 has selected the theme: “The Thinking Sales Organisation”. Sales operations …

12 Sales Trends for 2014 – The Thinking Sales Organisation Read Post »

Salespeople In The Deep End (Again)

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Skills, Sales Training

Last week I received a call from a woman (let’s call her Tracy for the purpose of this article) desperately seeking help on how to sell.  Tracy had been in her role for 5 months and all that time had not received any guidance, advice, coaching or support from her managers on how to sell her products or who to sell them to. She had never been in a sales role before and did not work in the vicinity of the head office.  She was out there on her own …

Salespeople In The Deep End (Again) Read Post »

Some industries just don’t get prospecting

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Education in Sales, Prospecting

I have been prospecting for new business on a regular and consistent basis since 1985.

For my team and prospecting is a way of life. We could never have developed our respective businesses and reputations without the vital business skill of prospecting.  We both confess that in the early days we did not enjoy many of the aspects of prospecting but we learned how to prospect successfully and we understand that prospecting is like oxygen – it fuels the fire of sales. Without prospects to speak to we cannot do business.

That is why I find it very interesting that certain industries …

Some industries just don’t get prospecting Read Post »

Hidden sales coaching moments

By / / Coaching, Education in Sales, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Uncategorized

The value of sales coaching cannot be ignored. Various studies across the last 30+ years have demonstrated that regular coaching improves recall and retention of learning from sales classroom training at between 80-95%, as compared to 13% with no follow up coaching.  Coaching helps improve sales performance by around 20% when compared to a non coaching environment. Yet, many sales managers maintain they don’t have the time to perform coaching, the most important of all sales leadership tasks.  Go figure! One …

Hidden sales coaching moments Read Post »

The History of Sales Methodologies

By / / Business Acumen, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Research

Have you ever wondered just how many sales methodologies are out there and which ones work and which ones don’t?

Maybe you haven’t given much conscious thought to this subject but then again maybe you have.  Either way, if you are in sales or run a sales team or business and want to be more effective and successful it’s critical that you know what sales methodology will work best for you and your customers.

Unfortunately, the business world has been littered with more dubious sales methodologies than there are effective ones. Our business, at Barrett, is to …

The History of Sales Methodologies Read Post »

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

7 differences between Sales and Marketing Read Post »

Scroll to Top