Finding Sales Opportunities in the Supply Chain of Supply Chains during COVID-19

By / / Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Resilience, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Market Segmentation, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Systems Thinking

At Barrett, our goal is to help businesses stay in business and keep people in jobs so we can sell better for a sustainable future.

And right here right now, the world as we know it will most likely seem overwhelming to many of us and for a good reason – the unprecedented health and economic impact of COVID-19.

We are in unchartered territory.

We’d either have to be living under a rock or completely oblivious for this to not have some physical and psychological impact on our wellbeing, employment, livelihood, share portfolios, families and communities. This situation affects us all regardless of …

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Necessity is the mother of invention: How to keep on selling better during COVID-19

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Wellbeing

As the world responds to contain the COVID-19 disease, we want to make sure that your and our teams stay safe so we are adjusting our commitments and activities in accordance to current regulations.

We also understand that for businesses these are troubling times, but there are ways forward. As they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. We want to stay by your side and help you assess your situation, whether that be devising a sales strategy in line with the new reality, or helping your staff keep the business going in a feasible and responsible way. At Barrett we …

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What to do when there’s panic in the air…get focused & get selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Life Skills, Opportunity, Prospecting, Resilience, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales performance, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Success

I’ve been around long enough to have lived and worked through major recessions, financial crises i.e. GFC, and general downturns in business and survived, if not thrived during these times. Why?

The clever investors, business and salespeople look at downturns in markets as opportunities to get further ahead. They look at the evidence at hand, the trends that are emerging and see opportunity, when many others see disaster. I don’t mean that these people are blithely skipping through the day oblivious to the challenges facing communities, markets and economies.

The truth is they are probably far more aware of all the challenges …

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Sales Trend 2 – A better way of doing business

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment, Wellbeing

Sales trend 2 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trend Report for 2020 is about what businesses and sales teams can do now to start making a difference for people and the planet.

The time for talking is past. The planet and its inhabitants can’t wait any longer. Now is the time for decisive action.

Businesses and organisations can, and should, be part of the solution and support sustainable development, wellbeing and a prosperous future for all.

The blue print is here.

The navigation system is ready for deployment. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for every business and organisation …

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The Noble Profession of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Self Development, Selling Better, Success

The statement ‘The noble profession of Selling’ may sit well with some. While many others would find ways to say everything to the contrary, bringing up stories about how they or others were ripped off by shonky salespeople. I mean why is it that when someone’s deceived by someone else they say ‘they’ve done a sales job on them’? There’s nothing noble about that, you’d agree.

In a world where it’s too easy to engage and influence people with catchy slogans and memes that can propagate negative stereotypes, fear of the other, division, misinformation and myths, and keep people ignorant or …

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Crowdsourcing Sales Forecasting to deliver better certainty

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Forecasting, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Forecasting, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Selling Better, Success

People love certainty, especially when it comes to business. Which is why sales forecasting and sales pipeline management can often be the bane of sales leaders and their sales teams’ lives with senior management constantly on their backs wanting to know what deals will land and when, and when the revenue will start to come in. It’s relentless.

So given the current state of the world and the climate of uncertainty, it’s a good time to look at some of the latest thinking and work being done to improve the certainty of sales forecasting and pipeline management.

Current Situation with Sales Forecasting

Tracking …

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The Holy Trinity of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Buying, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Solution Selling

This post has been inspired by my colleague, Ben Shute, who I work arm in arm with bridging the divide between sales and procurement. He wrote about the Holy Trinity of Procurement Skills and so challenged me to do the same for Sales.

Here is my contribution.

The profession of selling requires a whole range of capabilities. It’s hard to know where to begin to define the 3 core elements for sales – the Holy Trinity of Selling.

So I’ll start with the master categories of Knowledge, Skills and Mindset from Barrett’s Sales Competency Dictionary.

Knowledge

Let’s …

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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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    Trusting optimism

    By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Opportunity, Optimism, Wellbeing

    Sales trend 8 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 is about the benefits for people and businesses of adopting an optimistic approach.

    By guest author Victor Perton.

    It is said that trust is in short supply in Australia. The Edelman Trust Barometer is trotted out in pessimistic speeches to suggest that Australian leadership is in a state of collapse. However, the Edelman folk are confused by their own findings. Given the current prosperity and wellbeing in Australia, with 25 years of uninterrupted growth, a presentation by Edelman suggested that the place in which Brand …

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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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