Sales Trend 5 – The New Accountability in Holistic (sales) Learning

By / / Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Sales Trends, Self Development

Sales Trend 5 of our Sales Trends Report for 2015 is about the new accountability is holistic learning. Learning and Development (L&D) across the board, and especially in sales, has slowly but continuously been changing over the past few years. There are a variety of factors influencing this recent development. The ongoing challenge through these changes has been that it is not a single “trend” that has determined the necessary adjustments to be made to keep up with developments in the area, but a number of aggregated trends and factors that have simultaneously been responsible for supplying …

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Top 13 Sales Issues for businesses in 2014

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results

As we get close to our celebration of 20 years in business we thought we would share with you the most common and critical sales problems that are affecting sales teams large and small, across all sorts of markets and industries in 2014. Here they are:

  • Businesses not making sales quota overall
  • Not enough salespeople making quota
  • Win/lose ratio unacceptably low
  • Deals taking too long to close
  • Leads/sales ratio too low
  • Not getting enough client meetings
  • Margins being squeezed
  • Chasing poorly qualified leads
  • Not engaging with decision makers
  • Salespeople not able to engage effectively at C level
  • Salespeople not understanding the client’s perspective
  • Too much discounting
  • Losing deals on price

    • The list contents may …

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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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    My one wish for all sales teams is …

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Training, Self Development, Solution Selling

    My one wish for sales teams is that they are given the opportunity to continue to learn and develop in a dynamic learning environment where learning, reflection and constant iterations in their behaviour and skills are a regular, daily way of life. Those businesses create, what we call at Barrett, a Perpetual Learning Environment (PLE) where learning is integrated into everything we do and is a daily way of life not just a training event held once a year.

    Sounds idyllic, fanciful even, well there is a body of work emerging that shows there are significant …

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    Are you serious?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Success

    Today’s article is a bit of a rant I have to admit. I wrote the text below after one of those phone calls I receive, and as you may tell, I was a bit upset afterwards. Bear with me though, I’m sure you’ll see the point I’m trying to make.

    Have you ever considered how much it costs and how much effort it takes to become and remain a highly skilled professional these days? Think about a competent marketing manager, a skilled engineer or IT specialist, a capable accountant, bookkeeper, publicist or journalist, a reliable chef, event manager or hairdresser? We’re …

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    The 7 benefits of Online Sales Training

    By / / Education in Sales, Sales Essentials, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Self Development, Success

    Have you ever tried online sales training? Why not try this complimentary Sales Essentials Module – ethics, philosophy and history of selling? Why? Because the world of sales education and training is evolving and online sales training is starting to take hold. Whilst classroom training will always have its place, here are 7 reasons you might like to include online sales training in your repertoire.

  • Cost Saving: It is no secret that classroom based training can be extremely costly. Not only is the cost of the training event usually high, we also have to consider travel expenses, accommodation, and most …

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    Work your sales activity year to achieve your financial year target

    By / / Education in Sales, Prospecting

    Everyone has a sales cycle – this is defined as the average time it takes you to identify and ignite a viable sales opportunity through to closing the sale. Taking immediate transactional sales out of the equation –like buying something on the spot– a sales cycle can vary from industry to industry and can be as short as 1-7 days or span 12 months to 2 years, or even longer if we are talking really major sales.

    However, industries withstanding, for most B2B salespeople an average sales cycle is more likely 1-3 months. So as we …

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    Sales Trend 5 – The move to Micro Sales Segmentation

    By / / Education in Sales, Marketing, Sales Management, Sales Strategy, 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. Here is the fifth Sales Trend for 2014 – The Move to Micro Sales Segmentation.

    In 2014 sales teams are dealing with specific complexities (down markets, knowledgeable buyer, buyers with the pressure to cut costs, buyers that are ill-informed, etc). The approach that Marketing has to segmentation doesn’t completely deal with these …

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    Sales Trend 4 – Sales Training Methodologies are changing

    By / / Education in Sales, Sales Essentials, Sales Training, Sales Trends

    The fourth Sales Trend for 2014 is Sales Training Methodologies are going to change.

    Sales training as we know it is not going to disappear. As the market becomes more complex and competition more virulent salespeople will need more, not less training. But they will also have less time to be trained. These two forces – increased competition with the need to up skill salespeople and less time for training – will make identifying different and effective training methods key to success.

    Amongst the more evident challenges facing companies …

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    How to keep your sales wheels turning

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Research, Sales Training, Self Development

    Maintaining momentum in a sales career requires a proactive, disciplined approach. There are many things to consider and put together to achieve an effective selling week and sales year. The onus is on us, the salesperson, to make the most of what we have. However, many sales people unfortunately adopt the approach that it is their company’s responsibility to train and educate them, to provide everything they need before they can truly be effective as sales people.

    By contrast, enlightened, highly effective sales people recognise that they need to invest in themselves, invest in their own learning and continuous development, make …

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