We change, or we burn

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Environment & Sustainability, Procurement

Sales Trend 5 from Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report for 2020 delves into the role of procurement in generating change towards sustainability within an organisation.

By guest author Ben Shute, CEO – Comprara & Purchasing Index

Proverbs and anecdotes

When I was asked to contribute to the Barrett 2020 Sales Trends Report, the invitation posed a question: “With everything we need for positive change and progress available to us now, why wait for a crisis to secure our future?” Immediately, all the proverbs warning against change jumped to mind. “If it …

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Human-centred sales operations – Being Businessworthy

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Sales Strategy, Sustainability & Environment, Systems Thinking

Sales trend 4 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2020 is about what being human-centred means for businesses.

All business people know the concept of being creditworthy. That’s about not losing other people’s money.

Enter the Business for Peace Foundation[1], established in 2007 in Oslo, Norway, which has developed the concept of Being Businessworthy.

Being Businessworthy means being human-centred and purpose-led.

This shift to a more holistic approach to doing business is having a profound effect on how businesses operate, including how they set up their sales teams, sales operations and value chains.

The latest research in …

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time_is_now

The Time is NOW for Purposeful Optimism

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Collaboration, covid-19, Innovation, Life Skills, Opportunity, Optimism, Purposeful Optimism, Resilience, Sales Essentials, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Wellbeing

I get the feeling, at this stage of the COVID-19 crisis, that many of us feel like we are living in a kind of ‘Twilight Zone*’ – an ambiguous area between the boundaries of two concepts, conditions – a grey zone; or a state of surrealism, where things that should not make sense seem to do so; or an indefinite or transitional condition. Take your pick.

For many of us, everything we have taken for granted or accepted as standard has been thrown into question. If you’re like me, you’re likely asking yourself, your family, your team, your clients and suppliers, …

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No, but actually… the time is now

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Optimism, Resilience, Sustainability & Environment, Trust, Wellbeing

Sales trend 3 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2020 discusses why climate action now makes good (business) sense and why it’s important to focus on achieving desirable outcomes and not just avoiding negative impacts.  

The following text has been slightly modified to cater for the changes that have taken place since it was first published. You can read the full version here.

By guest author TOBY KENT // Chief Resilience Officer, Melbourne

It is 2020, the year for which countries and businesses were all frantically setting climate change reduction targets less …

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It’s time to look ahead. It’s time to get selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Communication, covid-19, Opportunity, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Success
No more waiting… It’s time to look ahead. It’s time to get selling.

This headline may seem insensitive to some people. ‘It’s too soon’ I hear some people saying.

It is perfectly understandable that when a *Black Swan Event -such as what we are living through now with Covid-19- happens, people stop in their tracks to first deal with the immediate shock and then try to make sense of ‘what the hell just happened?’ People’s mental and emotional energy are focused on the here and now – it’s about how to survive.

 Which is why when organisations are in major crisis, key decision-makers …

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how-do-I-keep-the-cabin-safe-and-people-calm

How do I keep the cabin safe and people calm?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, covid-19, Opportunity, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills

In HR you support “pilots and crews” to help them run smooth operations. When a crisis like this one hits out of the blue, and sales and service operations are disrupted, if not brought to a complete halt, it is critical to help everyone get back on their feet again and find solid ground quickly and safely.

Whether your business has been affected by the COVID-19 crisis directly or through the ripple effect across the value chain from suppliers to the customer experience, your sales and service leaders and teams are probably concerned, both personally and from …

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how-do-I-think-and-act-like-Sully

How do I think and act like Sully?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, covid-19, Customer Service, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy

Do you remember the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York City in 2009?

Your business might not have been struck directly – like Captain Sullenberger’s plane had been hit by a flock of geese – but the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis has hit us all directly or indirectly creating with it the challenges and opportunities to keep your business going and your teams engaged, productive and sales fit while working remotely or still in the field with your clients. The opportunity during what might be a more quiet time for many businesses is to adjust …

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How to stay open for business: Selling Better during this crisis and beyond.

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, covid-19, Education in Sales, Opportunity, Resilience, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Psychology, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Wellbeing

Do you remember the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York City in 2009?

Both engines of the plane lost thrust after colliding with a flock of geese. The plane was going to crash. There was no time to get anywhere else safely. The pilot, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, with the help of his co-pilot and crew landed the plane on the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survived. 208 seconds passed from the moment the plane lost power to the safe landing.

The most important factors in this successful landing were that the captain and co-pilot were …

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Organisations are nothing without communication and relationships

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Communication, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Teamwork

Organisations can only exist when there is an active system of communication between parties that creates the scaffolding of relationship dynamics. Without communication and relationships, organisations are hollow, empty. And as much as good communication can do for an organisation, bad communication or the lack thereof can tear it down.

In times of crisis and major up upheaval like we are all currently experiencing– in families, businesses, communities, governments, economies and societies – the content, quality and frequency of communication is paramount to our survival, literally.

In particular, what we say as leaders, how we say it and how often we say …

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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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