How buying patterns have changed

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Procurement, Sales Results, Social Sales, Value Based Selling

Salespeople everywhere are faced with demands to meet increasingly high quotas in the face of growing market complexity and relentless financial pressure. There is also more competitors with Me2 products –just as good as brand names–, and an increased pressure on margins with buyers reluctant to make early commitments. Salespeople are facing demands like they never had before.

Current research from the Behaviour & Economic Research team at NAB¹  states that forward orders (in 2014) were very patchy for both big businesses and SMEs, making it very hard to forecast sales and manage pipelines. This only confirms the reticence of buyers …

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What to do about badly informed buyers

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Procurement

‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ is an 18th century saying that means a small amount of knowledge can mislead people into thinking that they are more expert than they really are.

How true in today’s society.

For example, the medical profession has warned people about their penchant for searching the Internet for symptoms of the ailments they feel that they have. Worse still is looking for the remedy without getting professional advice in some mistaken belief that if it appears as a result of a Google search, it must be true.

It’s not that the information is essentially wrong – though …

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How to avoid the ‘Race to the Bottom’ & mutual destruction

By / / Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Research, Sales Trends

The recent news about Coles and Woolworths being taken to task by the ACCC for their questionable dealings with suppliers has highlighted a major problem plaguing customer-supplier relationships.

Barrett’s first Sales Trend for 2015 is ‘Race to the Bottom’ because of the drastic impact this unsustainable pricing strategy is having on sales and buyer relationships. Edward Rayner, a procurement specialist gave us important insights into this major issue and presented some important questions and strategies sales teams can employ to help avoid mutual destruction.

Here are some of Rayner’s findings.

A customer-supplier engagement strategy that …

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Sales Trend 9 – Procurement need to be solutions salespeople too

By / / Procurement, Sales Trends

The ninth Sales Trend for 2014 is ‘Procurement need to be solutions salespeople too’. The times are indeed changing with the function of Procurement becoming increasingly important as a conduit, an orchestrator if you will, of the co-creation of value with suppliers and internal stakeholders as well as right down the value chain to the end consumer and back again. No longer can procurement rest its case on ‘lowest cost’, ‘cheapest price’ or ‘supply of goods and services’; it must assume responsibility for the creation and delivery of real value beyond a price …

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The Latest (disturbing) Findings From The World of Sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Procurement, Sales Pioneer

For the third year running I recently had the privilege and pleasure of attending, presenting and acting as MC at the CSE11, Asia Pacific’s Premier Sales Leadership Conference – “The New Era of Professional Selling; The Pathway from Supplier to Partner Status”. Over 150 delegates from Australia’s premium companies attended and we heard from some of the world’s leading experts on sales capability, strategy and culture. There was much talk about the rapidly changing face of our B2B (business to business) sales world and how we need to build relevant and sustainable partnerships if we …

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Procurement & Value Managed

By / / Customer Service, Procurement, Sales Culture, Value Proposition & Value Add

‘Procurement & Value Managed’ was voted as the Number 8 for Sales Trends for 2011. In 2011 we are seeing the development, thinking and sophistication of the Procurement Profession accelerate. This progression will surely see procurement on the front foot of supply chain management. Around 60 percent of major global corporations now have Procurement and Supply at the executive table alongside sales, marketing, finance, production, HR, IT, etc. Security of supply, environmental credentials, sustainable business practices, integrative processes and business cases will be up for discussion at the executive …

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The New Age Customer

By / / Customer Service, Procurement, Sales Leadership, Social Media

In a world still recovering from the GFC and grappling with the buzz of social media, we are now in the midst of a war between retail and online shopping facing daily decisions about purchasing locally or overseas, and B2B sales teams challenged with moving from selling product transactions to being business people who can sell value and ideas. It’s no wonder that businesses are grappling with the new age customer who has emerged looking somewhat different in this new climate.

Sales leaders often struggle with the changing dynamics of the customer relationship. The Sales …

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How your procurement practices affect your sales and brand

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Procurement, Sales Culture

Ethical selling and procurement (purchasing) is now in the spotlight. Harvey Norman’s recent publicity surrounding their supposed sourcing and use of Australian native old growth forest timbers in their Chinese made furniture has drawn light on retail procurement practices.

Harvey Norman have been asked by activist groups NGO Markets for Change and GetUp.org.au to explain themselves. GetUp.org.au has even gone to the lengths of creating and distributing a viral advertisement after the Television Classification Board refused to classify the ad, concerned about potential legal action if they did so. …

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CRM as a business strategy

By / / Communication, CRM, Procurement

‘CRM as a business strategy’ was voted as the Number 6 Sales Trends for 2011. Looking at your Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM’s) as a piece of software? Think again. While CRM’s are getting better, easier and cheaper to use, this year more companies are positioning their CRM’s as a marketing channel to map the true value of their clients to aid their competitive edge.

For those unfamiliar with CRMs, it’s time to familiarise yourselves or be left behind. A CRM is a strategy to manage your company’s interactions with your customers, clients and …

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Why selling is now a team sport

By / / Collaboration, Communication, Customer Service, Marketing, Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Training, Teamwork

Subjected to marketing and sales monologues for the better part of 40 years in the form of blanket advertising, product brochures and ‘your call is important to us’ busy signals, customers have taken the lead and are way ahead of us when it comes to having sales and marketing dialogues. Far more informed and sophisticated, and posting blogs, Facebook ‘Likes’, Tweets and reTweets, customers are engaging in their own sales and marketing dialogues about our products, our sales people, our promise, our customer service proposition and our brands, and they are affecting …

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