Why I want to tell you what to do, but I won’t, even if I know better

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Skills, Sales Tips

We’ve all been there

How many times do we want to tell our clients what to do?

After only a few sentences uttered by them we, of course, know immediately what their issue is. We’ve seen it 10s or 100s of times before. It seems so obvious to us what they should do.

“If only they would just do this… it would be so much better/ save them so much time/ get them there faster/ make them safer, etc.” I hear you cry.

Welcome to the world of domain expertise when you (potentially) know a lot more about something than someone else does. It …

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It’s all about Opportunity: A future – disrupted & reimagined

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Innovation, Life Skills, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Success

On December 4 (Melbourne) and 6 (Sydney) 2017, Barrett will be attending The Future: Disrupted and Reimagined event featuring Malcolm Gladwell, author of five New York Times bestsellers — The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, and Steven Levitt, economist and co-author of Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, Think Like A Freak and When To Rob a Bank.

Gladwell and Levitt are some of the world’s most interesting and outstanding writers talking about the 21st century world and how we can rethink and reimagine our future in times of great …

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Why Sales is still the elephant in the room

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Strategy

Have you noticed that nearly everyone you meet from CEOs and leaders to professionals services firms, not-for-profits and universities, to the people in the street want to do anything but actually sell and talk about sales?

Many of them will tell you that they want to grow their businesses, deliver better revenue and profits, drive better customer experiences, be taken more seriously by their clients, build better relationships, attract more customers, etc.

To achieve these things they will tell you they are trying out some special apps, social media strategies, CRM systems, developing their leadership styles, EQ assessments, agile work environments, flexible …

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2017 Sales Trend 6 – Where are All the High Performance Sales Coaches?

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 6 from our 12 Sales Trends for 2017 report is about sales coaching.

This sales trend focuses on how sales coaching is still lagging behind business coaching as a standard business discipline, but how the best sales leaders are using coaching to transform their sales teams and sales performances to maximise success. So what’s going on with sales coaching?

A lot has been written about coaching, specifically business coaching, over the years and the proof is that coaching, like anything if applied effectively, does work. For instance, the International Coach Federation (ICF) conducted a worldwide survey …

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How Retail Discount Advertising negatively impacts B2B Sales – Part II

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

How to shift the conversation from Price to Value

In last week’s post we talked about how –given that every business executive is a consumer, and the amount of discount sales in the retail sector- the expectation of ‘better price’ is impacting B2B sales.

We concluded that a more pragmatic approach is needed, based on value rather than absolute price.

This is the point we need to understand as sales people and business leaders: the client does not really see a price, they see and are looking for value.  So our real mission as sales people is to find out what …

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How Retail Discount Advertising negatively impacts B2B Sales – Part I of II

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Tips, Value Based Selling

Fact – every business executive is a consumer.

Fact – every consumer, certainly here in Australia, is exposed to a barrage of discounting and sales offers from the retail sector.

In fact, on any given day, whether on TV, radio, billboard or online, we are bound to be exposed –in our experience- to at least 5-10 “discounting sales” or “discounted special offers” that are being promoted by companies selling everything from food to solar power, new homes to motors cars, from beer and wine to computers.

You have to wonder whether these retailers (and their advertising agencies) realise the damage they are doing …

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Women in Sales Leadership – Visions of Success

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Collaboration, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Self Promotion

On 19-20 April I had the privilege of chairing the 2-day conference: Women in Sales Leadership – Visions of Success in Sydney where we had over 100 women and 4 men attend.

The attendees were given the opportunity to hear from and interact with 16 of Australia’s leading female sales leaders and three male sales leaders and explore how they have created and charted their own visions of success.

Key topics discussed included:

  • Setting goals and planning for career growth
  • Defining your WHY?
  • Don’t let career breaks pause your progression
  • Finding the right Sponsors and Mentors and how to involve men on your career journey
  • Establishing your …

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2017 Sales Trend 4 – Learn to Embrace and Manage Complexity

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 4 from our 12 Sales Trends for 2017 report explains why to have extraordinary sales teams and operations, we have to embrace complexity.

As John Lord[1] said “Perhaps a greater understanding of what I am saying might be obtained by exercising a greater willingness to think more deeply”. 

Regrettably, most organisations ONLY view their sales operations as tactical linear functions of the value chain—and while sales teams need to get up close and personal on a tactical level with customers, if sales is only viewed through the overly simplistic lens of “foot soldiers selling products” then …

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The Science of Persuasion

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Sales Psychology

Forget dictatorships, command and control style approaches, persuasion has a lot more going for it when it comes to better sales, better relationships, better team work, better business outcomes and long term change in actions and behaviour.

The term persuasion is most commonly associated with sales people. And there’s a good reason for that. If we consider the Business Dictionary definition of persuasion, “process aimed at changing a person’s (or a group’s) attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s), by using written or spoken words to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination of them”, it …

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Four tips to spot business opportunities.

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations

How many people in your business are in contact with customers on a daily basis?

How many of them would be presented with new business opportunities but wouldn’t know what they look like or what to do with them?

Lately, we are hearing a common theme coming from CEOs, sales leaders, and partners at professional services firms: “My team cannot spot a business opportunity even when it’s right in front of them”

These leaders are not looking for everyone in their team to be able to sell or even pursue opportunities. All they want is for these people to be able to spot …

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