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Engage, Communicate, Sell Better: What Each Generation Brings To The Table

By / / AI & Data, Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Sales Strategy, Value Proposition & Value Add

In 30 seconds

The Problem: Organisations often treat generational difference as a gap to manage rather than a resource to draw on, leaving experience and digital fluency siloed instead of combined.

The Shift: Knowledge is no longer gated by age or seniority, so the real advantage now lies in judgement, knowing what to do with information everyone can access, built through genuine two-way learning across generations.

The Solution: Create environments where younger digital fluency and experienced pattern recognition are exchanged in both directions, so engage, communicate and sell better works across the whole table, not just the senior end of it..

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The Founder Trap – When Your Success Becomes Your Ceiling

By / / Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, Sales Growth, Sales Methodology, Sales Process Maps

In 30 seconds

The Problem: You’ve built a $5M business on personal relationships and heroic effort – but that’s your ceiling. 78% of companies with product-market fit fail to scale because the founder is both engine and bottleneck. New hires can’t replicate your success, deals stall without you, and your instincts live only in your head. Whether you want to scale, sell, or step back – you can’t. The business is you.

The Shift: From founder-dependent to system-enabled. What you do instinctively must become what your team does systematically. This isn’t about working harder – it’s about making your magic transferable through frameworks, process maps, and repeatable methodologies.

The Solution: Systematise your value delivery. Build sales playbooks, sales process maps, and sales frameworks that work whether you’re in the room or not. Barrett’s 31-year journey proves it’s possible -creating models for sales operations, value-based selling, and leadership that enable teams to deliver independently. The result: options to scale, transition, or sustain without staying trapped.

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Rebel Rebel Modern Love: Building Customer Loyalty Through Empathy & Trust

By / / Collaboration, Customer experience, Emotional Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Soft skills

In 30 seconds

Key Takeaways:

The Problem: Automation is eroding human connection. Research shows 68% of customers leave because they feel companies don’t care, not due to product issues or price.

The Shift: From customer acquisition to community cultivation, Bowie built a tribe through BowieNet’s 18-year run (1998-2016), creating deep relationships before “community” became a buzzword. The future belongs to those mastering Human-AI Partnership: AI handles mechanics while humans deepen emotional intelligence and trust.

The Solution: Embed empathy in every interaction through active listening, understanding emotional drivers, and aligning solutions with values. Build advisory relationships prioritising long-term trust over transactions. Leaders must model team empathy, creating psychologically safe spaces where connection flourishes.

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Growth Stalled? The Absence of a Sales System in Founder-Led Businesses

By / / Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, Sales Methodology, Sales Strategy, Sales System

In 30 seconds

Founder-led businesses often start with the founder driving sales through vision and hustle. Early success comes quickly but scaling stalls due to the absence of a sales system inside the business. Sales rely on the founder’s instincts and relationships, hard for others to replicate. Telling the team to “be like them” fails—new hires lack guidance, and the founder bears too much. Growth demands more than one person’s effort; it needs a process-driven system. Over many years we have been implementing Barrett’s Sales Operating System, auditing the founder’s approach, defining processes, and training teams to engage, communicate and …

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hybrid-selling is here to stay

Nurturing Soft Skills for Business Success

By / / Blog, Digital credentials, Education in Sales, Emotional Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Sales Essentials, Sales Skills

In 30 seconds

Soft skills have taken centre stage in the 4th Industrial Revolution, becoming integral to employability and business success. These versatile abilities, spanning communication, teamwork, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, ethics, and global citizenship, are now more critical than ever. Deloitte Access Economics forecasts that by 2030, two-thirds of jobs will heavily depend on soft skills, marking a significant workforce transformation. Businesses, especially in sales and customer service, can gain a competitive edge and increase revenue by fostering these skills. Enhanced interpersonal and self-management proficiencies create healthier work environments. Contrary to the belief that soft skills are innate, they can be …

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Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes… why it pays to be an early adopter & change agent

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, covid-19, Decarbonising, Entrepreneurship, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Leadership, Opportunity, Strategy, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Welcome to 2022. Each year I write a reflection piece on achieving another year in business. On 9th January 2022, we celebrated 27 years, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate theme than David Bowie’s song, Changes.

These song lyrics seem rather apt given the current times and the journey that my team and I have been on over the last nearly 3 decades, especially the last two as we all navigate and enter yet another covid pandemic year.

To me Changes is about finding your voice, your purpose, and not accepting the status quo. Changes is about not being bullied …

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The Characteristics of World Class Entrepreneurs & Change Agents

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Entrepreneurship, Sales Skills, Success

In my last article: Are Entrepreneurs & Change Agents Born or Made, we explored the importance of nurture, education, and environment to help cultivate our inner entrepreneur and/or change agent.

This time I’d like to present a list of characteristics or qualities that are often, if not always, present in those who become world class in this space.

While being born with high fluid intelligence, high openness to being creative and open to new ideas, and moderate agreeableness -i.e. being somewhat warm, friendly, and tactful with the ability to get along well with others- really helps, it shouldn’t stop …

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Are entrepreneurs & change agents born or made?

By / / Blog, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Self Development, Success

Are successful entrepreneurs and change agents born or made? This is an important question because it can affect how people see themselves and what they aim for.

Let’s start first with some basic definitions:

Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship is defined as the act of starting and running your own business or a tendency to be creative and wish to work for yourself in your own ventures.

Change Agent: A change agent is a person from inside or outside an organisation who helps an organisation, or part of an organisation, to transform how it operates. They can be thought of as a catalyst for change, a …

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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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25-year-journey

A new chapter in Barrett’s 25-year history

By / / Blog, Entrepreneurship, Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Strategy, Success, Sustainability & Environment, Teamwork

Blog Podcast

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When I founded Barrett 25 years ago in January 1995, my goal was to create a different type of business consultancy; one that specialised in all things sales but from the perspective of being collaborative, team oriented, personally reflective, self-aware and human centric; a business with heart where people were at the centre of everything we did.

It’s been exciting ever since, and …

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