Why Procurement can and should be the epicentre of innovation for business

By / / Business Acumen, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Procurement

Procurement, whether they are aware of it or not, are the epicentre of innovation and leadership of complex systems management within organisations and across the supply chain, or at least they should be.

Their exposure to all elements of the supply chain can and should inform them and in turn other key stakeholders within and outside their organisations of the latest, the easiest, most sustainable, faster, ethical, better ways of doing business.

While they cannot expect to be experts in every area of business, they can and should be experts in systems, managing complexity and managing relationships which is what a supply …

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Want a viable future? Opportunities abound in the Common Good

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Case study, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

What type of board member, CEO or sales leader are you?

  • Are you stuck in the day-to-day looking to meet your monthly and quarterly targets, looking to maximise profit, shareholder return and your bonuses?
    OR
  • Are you looking into the future to see what lies ahead ensuring there is a viable sustainable path for all to follow and participate in?

    • In today’s world everything is up for grabs.

    Old institutions are crashing and dying because they held onto the past and failed to adapt.

    Take Thomas Cook Travel as a current case in point. While their leaders were bathing themselves in 29M pounds of bonuses, …

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    How prepared is ‘The Lucky Country’ for tough times?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Uncategorized

    Ah the good times…

    Ah 28 years of uninterrupted growth…

    Ah Australia, ‘The Lucky Country’*…

    Ah ‘How good is Australia?’…

    Pssst. But don’t talk about the R** word…

    We are indeed fortunate in Australia to have access to many resources, space, and talented people; however, our luck maybe running out if we carry on drinking the ‘recession avoidance’ Kool Aid, carry on with our old ways of managing business and thinking everything is rosy instead of adapting to the array of changes, challenges, and opportunities that are out there in the market place.

    Which is why I couldn’t go past economist Jim Stanford’s comments in Paddy …

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    One main reason most start-ups fail

    By / / Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Sales Market Segmentation, Sales Tips, Success

    Anyone can have an idea. Ideas are cheap and they are plenty.

    The challenge is turning that ‘amazing’ idea or invention into a commercially viable business entity.

    Many people throw their hearts, souls, energy and wallets into developing their idea. Designing, crafting and forming it. Then thinking about ways how they are going to market their idea to customers using marketing strategies and tactics. They are looking from the inside out.

    Yet the key questions many start-ups fail to explore first are:

    • Are there customers and markets looking for a solution that your idea can solve?
    • Are these potential customers prepared to pay for your …

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    2019 Sales Trends Event  – Trust me, I’m in Sales

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Procurement, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Sales Research, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Sustainability & Environment

    On 27 March 2019 we hosted our 7th Sales Trends Business Breakfast celebrating the 10th edition of the Barrett Annual 12 Sales Trends Report with Trust as our central theme.

    Over 120 people attended the event, mostly business people but we also had the Year 11 International Baccalaureate Student Representatives of the Melbourne Montessori School attend to further their knowledge and education as they study Business Management.

    The attendees heard from our special guest speakers, Suzanne Paynter, Strategy and Policy Advisor for the Future Business Council, and Andrew Smith, Head of Business Customer at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and myself, where we …

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    If I was Prime Minister for a day

    By / / Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Vision, Mission & Purpose

    Imagine you are asked to complete the statement ‘If I was Prime Minister for a day…’ what would you say?

    It is a very interesting task. It gets you thinking big. It got me thinking big.

    So in honour of International Women’s Day, 8 March 2019, I thought I would share with you my response to that statement and I encourage women, men and children to reflect on what they would say too. It can make all the difference to the choices we make in life and business.

    In November 2014, I was invited by the then Federal Minister for Small Business, Bruce …

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    Is Consumerism past its use-by-date?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Optimism, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

    This is a very interesting, perplexing and vexing question which is now being discussed at all levels of society.

    This question is not only an economic and business question but, increasingly, a moral question challenging the very nature of how we make a living, how we make money and how we function as communities, economies and societies.

    At this very point in our existence when anyone can reach almost everyone, everywhere, selling our wares and enticing people to buy, we, in the West at least, are confronted by the spectre of overconsumption, excessive waste with its environmental impacts and the ignominy of …

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    Why Purposeful Optimism is great for business

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Innovation, Life Skills, Opportunity, Optimism, Resilience

    I want you to imagine that you are a 24 year old graduate going for job interviews. In this instance, you are being interviewed by a multinational who takes you to the next stage- completing a range of psychometric assessments followed by an interview with a psychologist. Imagine if you will, that this psychologist starts his interview with you by saying you are ‘too optimistic’, that you are a ‘Pollyanna’, that ‘you are unrealistic in seeing the world in such as positive light’, claiming there is something really wrong with you.

    How would you feel? Well, this scenario happened to me …

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    Want to find & own uncontested markets? Try Blue Ocean Strategy

    By / / Business Acumen, Competition, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy, Success

    In today’s cluttered business landscape and global marketplace, finding uncontested markets to sell into and own, free of competition, at least for the foreseeable future, is getting harder, and harder and harder.

    Developing innovative ideas that turn into something new, unique and viable, are not easy to copy, and deliver revenue and healthy margins is equally tough.

    Rethinking our marketplaces, our traditional customers and non-customers, and how we sell and deliver real value to them, that they are prepared to pay for, well that’s another difficult challenge too.

    Most businesses these days find that they are increasingly competing head to …

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    Sales Trend 1 – The Selling Better Manifesto

    By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Education in Sales, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Mindful selling, Opportunity, Sales Pioneer, Sales Trends, Success, Uncategorized, Wellbeing

    Sales Trend 1 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2018 Report is our Selling Better Manifesto. It talks about the Selling Better Movement and it explains why we have started it.

    We have created The Selling Better Movement with the hope it will help people understand that there’s a better way of doing business.

    A way in which we can all be prosperous.

    The Selling Better Movement is an ethical and human-centred selling ethos underpinned by a practical selling philosophy.

    The modern business landscape offers a world of possibility. More and more people are stepping out to unearth …

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