How to sell better in uncertain times

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Mindful selling, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Management, Sales Strategy

Here we go again.

Global disarray, government elections, political scandals of betrayal and corruption. How do we keep our head when everyone else around us is losing theirs? How are we supposed to lead business and keep selling better when there’s a general feeling of uncertainty that makes decision making so difficult?

There are those of us who have been around in business for some time now. Many of us have been through a few major crises before such as the GFC and the major recession we had in the early 1990s. Things weren’t pretty, for sure, and yes there was a …

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6 Tips on How to Sell Value and Reposition Price – Take 2

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Competition, Education in Sales, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better

Another week goes by and another dozen stories of businesses discounting prices (or being asked to do so by their prospects or clients) appear. This week we heard about a few examples:

  • a business being asked by a prospect to ‘give us a better price because you are doing a few things with us’,
  • a business being told by a client, midway through a project, that ‘they would love to keep on working with them but competitor XYZ can now do it for 25% less because they can bring in cheaper consultants from overseas ’, and
  • another business being asked to give a …

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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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    It all starts with Opportunity

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Opportunity, Optimism, Resilience, Success

    Life is all about opportunity.

    It’s about the choices we make on a daily basis.

    We are all presented with opportunities every day whether we see them or not.

    Some people are lucky enough to have opportunities served up to them on the platter of life not having to work very hard for them. And even then, these people may not realise their opportunities and let them sail away.

    While others are given very little or nothing by way of opportunity, yet they are determined to make the most of their abilities and surrounding circumstance to create and realise opportunity where none may have …

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    Someone has to sell, or you don’t have a business

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

    Someone has to do the selling or you don’t have a business.

    I have met many people over the years who have great ideas, skills, processes or inventions but hate the thought of selling.

    They usually come from two camps:

    Camp 1: Those people who understand they have to sell in order to have a business but just do not know how to do it. They often harbour some fears and anxieties about selling because of its bad public reputation and can feel overwhelmed about what they have to do. However, I find these people are willing to have a go.

    I will gladly …

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    Sales Trend 3 – Trust me, I am in procurement

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

    Guest author: Ben Shute, FCIPS , Chief Executive Officer Comprara & Purchasing Index

    Sales Trend 3 from looks at how trust influences procurement and how changes in the industry are affecting this relationship, see the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019.

    What does it mean to trust someone? It certainly does not mean that we know everything about them. Indeed, after a certain point, further information is meaningless. Studies have shown that once an impression is made, new facts don’t necessarily trigger a reassessment. If our trust is formed based on first-hand interaction, we are even more resistant to …

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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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    Trust, financial institutions and the markets.

    By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Ethics & Values, Sales Trends, Selling Better

    Sales Trend 2 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 touches on a very timely topic in Australia – trust and the financial sector.

    By guest author David Robertson, Head of Economic and Market Research, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.

    2018 has not been a good year for the stock prices of Australian financial institutions, with the ‘Financials’ sub-index of the ASX200 down over 16% from its high of 6621 in January. The rest of the market is also lower but not to the same extent –and the broader ASX200 index did reach a fresh ’18 peak recently in August …

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    Sales Tips for everyday life situations

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Life Skills, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

    Whether we are a salesperson or not, there are times in our daily lives when knowing how to sell well turns often awkward situations into positive outcomes for everyone.

    We are social animals. We rely on others for our existence which means we need to engage with others in some way to be able to live effectively and have a meaningful existence.

    Let’s look at the new school year as an example: there are often many new faces, new people to meet and people to interact with across the year whether you want to or not.

    This means that people find …

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    The rise of Ethical Selling in the new world order: The history of Sales Methodologies, revised & updated

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Selling Better, Solution Selling

    Selling is a hot topic, especially the louder calls for more ethical, fairer, purpose driven business and selling practices. Given the recent findings from the Australian Banking Royal Commission and the emerging new world transparency highlighting various unethical, immoral and unsustainable business and sales practices across the collective value chain, the rise of an Ethical Purpose Driven Selling Methodology, as the new world order, is making its way into mainstream consciousness.

    This got us revisiting our whitepaper, The History of Sales Methodologies – why some work and others don’t which we published in 2013. We wondered if there were enough significant …

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