Sales Trend 1: Selling in times of social mistrust

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Optimism

Sales trend 1 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2019 tackles the issue of selling when trust in businesses and institutions is low.

While there has never been a better time to be alive with access to wonderful resources and opportunities, amazing innovations, advances in technology and better healthcare, that can encourage the potential for our evolution and mutual prosperity, there is a shadow of mistrust that is following us everywhere.

We have more choices than ever before, and yet, we are more wary, cynical and cautious. We are flooded with oceans of information that are polluted with fake news …

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24 years in business and 24 Big Lessons to share

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Entrepreneurship, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Optimism, Selling Better, Success

This week marks the 24th anniversary since I founded Barrett and, over the summer break, I had some time to reflect upon myself, my business’ journey and the many, many lessons learned over the last 24 years.

We often get our ‘business lessons’ from big corporates about how to do this or that; however, I have found that many of these corporate lessons do not always translate well into small (few than 20 employees) to medium sized businesses which make up over 90% of all business in Australia.

So given that I fall into that 90+% category and have managed to …

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Ignore customer relationships at your peril: The demise of out-of-touch political parties

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Communication, Optimism, Selling Better, Strategy, Success

Even in the advent of big data, the nature of developing genuine customer relationships is generally not understood well enough by most businesses, and is not often on the agenda for thorough examination.

This got me thinking about political parties and the nature of their relationships with their party members and the broader communities upon which they rely upon to get elected.

In speaking with Leslie Roberts, Principal of ERM Advisory, he states that ‘In advice-based professional practices, such as accounting, financial planning, legal services, etc. it is all too common for the topic of customer relationships to be subject to gut-feeling, …

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Using ‘Intelligent Practice’ to enhance Sales Mastery & Results

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales performance, Sales Process Maps, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

In a time poor world, many people including sales leaders and salespeople often bemoan the fact that they cannot seem to make time for important things like continued professional development, coaching, and thorough planning thus leaving their evolution and sales results to chance.

Rushing through the day, responding to ‘urgent’ matters and deadlines, getting in and out of sales meetings as quickly as possible, doing the bare minimum with CRM and reporting, with little or no time for reflection or developing mastery in their core capabilities seems to be the lot of many sales teams today.

When we rush through tasks, client …

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Some key guidelines for Negotiations in Sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Negotiation, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Solution Selling

We are regularly asked by sales managers to provide negotiation skills training for their salespeople. However, after talking with them about their team’s situation and development priorities, it is quite clear, 90% of the time, that their people do not need negotiation skills training, what they really need is consultative solution selling skills training instead.

The reason many sales managers and sales teams find themselves in this situation is they think every time their salespeople hit an objection they must negotiate. Far from it. The easiest way to eliminate objections is by taking the time to understand your …

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The road less travelled – Selling Better

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Entrepreneurship, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Selling Better

On 9 January, 1995 I took the road less travelled when I chose to start my business dedicated to Selling Better rather than follow the traditional path of Selling More, and that has made all the difference.

As a business owner, entrepreneur, and pattern systems thinker amongst other things, it has been a fascinating and interesting journey of discovery on many levels: personally, professionally, intellectually, culturally, ethically, philosophically, and systems-wise.

While I am originally a science graduate who specialised in medical and biological subjects, I have adapted and evolved into an architect, engineer, behavioural scientist and philosopher who focuses …

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Sales Trend 11 – Sales cycle taking longer (much longer)

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

Sales Trend 11 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 explores the sales cycle and looks at the factors that are making it longer.

In a B2B environment, the sales cycle is usually defined as the days/ weeks/ months that pass from the first time a salesperson makes contact with a lead to the moment the client signs the contract. However, most definitions of ‘sales cycle’ have flaws because it’s nearly impossible to have one definition applicable to every business. Sales cycles vary enormously from industry to industry and organisation to organisation.

Regardless of what your definition of a …

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12 things we’ve learned so far about Selling Better in a 21st Century world

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Life Skills, Opportunity, Optimism, Sales Culture, Sales Results, Selling Better, Success

My team and I have been studying sales teams, salespeople, sales operating systems, sales strategies, sales processes, and sales cultures across a wide variety of industries in the public and private sectors, N4P and government since 1995 and we have seen and learned a lot of things.

Here is some of what we have learned:

  • Selling is everybody’s business and everybody lives by selling something
  • Selling starts with opportunity and purposeful optimism
  • Selling is the vehicle that allows opportunity to flourish and people to prosper; nothing happens until something gets sold
  • Selling at its best is when humans solve …

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    7 things you need to know about the Craft of Selling

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Resilience, Sales Essentials, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Solution Selling
    We can agree:

    Everybody lives by selling something – whether it be ideas, initiatives, visions, products, services or solutions.

    Selling is ubiquitous – ever present in our daily lives, internally and externally. 

    Selling is the vehicle that allows opportunity to flourish and people to prosper.

    Nothing happens until something gets sold.

    However:

    As ever present as selling is in our daily lives, most people learn how to sell by default, not design.

    Often thrown in the deep end, they work it out as they go, feeling their way by trial and error, hoping to be on the right track.

    This means that more people fail …

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    Unethical Selling, not Selling, should be on trial at the Banking Royal Commission

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Competition, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Selling Better

    With the handing down of the Interim Report from the Banking Royal Commission, Commissioner Hayne was scathing in his assessment of the banking finance sector, especially the big 4 banks and large insurance and investment firms, such as AMP, for enabling their cultures of greed to flourish at the expense of customers’ wellbeing, principled and ethical business practice.

    Commissioner Hayne said the key questions the commission had to answer were why such poor conduct had occurred and how to stop it happening again.

    He added that, in many cases, the answer to the first question was obvious.

    “Too often, the answer seems to …

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