Sales Trend 2 – The Silent Majority

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Talent, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 2 from our 12 Sales Trends for 2017 report is about the new salesperson stereotype.

The history of sales methodologies and sales people is full of twists and turns. With a few excellent –or at least well-intentioned– ways of selling and many others that are the complete opposite.

There was a time when the salesperson was the only one with information about new products—from the end of the 19th century to mid-20th century; they were the experts and customers were in their hands when it came to make a buying decision. This produced a situation where many sales …

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Selling Better Case Study: How to do it properly

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Sales Strategy

A Barrett Selling Better Case Study

Here is a brief snap shot of the current results of a major Selling Better project we started with one of our clients in 2015: 60 salespeople plus managers in a mid-tier speciality banking and finance company, Australia.

  • 130% of sales budget year to date
  • Sales pipeline confirmed business out to 24 weeks versus previous 14 week benchmark
  • Sales team realignment to match higher value customer market opportunities
  • Sales team finding and winning larger, more profitable sales with better quality clients
  • Customer retention (of the right kind of customers) at 100%
  • The CVP (customer value proposition) has been adopted across the …

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HOPE is not a Sales Strategy

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Strategy, Strategy

Whilst hope isn’t a sales strategy, without the right ingredients failure is certain

The protocol for developing a sales strategy is fundamentally different to that used for other business strategies. Even the thinking that drives a sales strategy is somewhat different to that which drives marketing strategies. Here are a few guidelines:

  • The golden rule that underpins any sales strategy is knowledge. By learning as much as one can about the market, buyers and the alternatives buyers have, sales is able to expand its own thinking beyond its present paradigm, in the process defining a clearer, more focused role in …

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    If you complain about price being a barrier, wear a bicycle helmet

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Procurement, Prospecting, Sales Tips

    Salespeople who complain about price as a barrier need to wear bicycle helmets.

    As a salesperson, the next time you feel you are losing deals because of price, take your prospect to a cycle shop and ask them if they were to ride a bike, which one of the helmets they would buy – the one that’s on sale for $10 or the sleek, ventilated $150 model that promises it meets all testing standards?

    The bet is they’ll opt to buy the $150 model. Why? You need guaranteed protection from a helmet in a crash; as a cyclist you need good ventilation; …

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    Solution versus Product Selling

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

    Today it is almost impossible to meet a product salesperson in the business-to-business sector. Everyone sells ‘solutions’ hoping they can charge a premium or perform some miracle that will instantly differentiate them from their competitors.

    And management – often ignorant of the subtle differences between selling products or services and selling solutions – become frustrated when they find that the expected boom in sales doesn’t materialise; that their salespeople continue to face pressure for lower prices, better service delivery and a wider range of offerings.

    The challenge is understanding what selling a solution requires. The real starting point, for a truly solutions …

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    Are customer surveys useless?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Customer Service, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy

    There is no doubt that automation saves time and money. It improves efficiencies and very often eliminates human error. But what happens to companies when they try to automate all of their customer interactions in an attempt to cut costs and yet still give the appearance of caring? In other words, what bad business decision-making drives otherwise well meaning, customer-centric companies to send out post service customer service questionnaires and then fail to act on the feedback they get, or even to acknowledge them?

    Over the past few weeks I had 8 such questionnaires, each asking me to rate the quality …

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    How to reach prospects and keep the door open

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Innovation, Prospecting, Sales Tips

    So how do we reach  prospects and keep the door open?

    While everyone is trying to go big – go small and use innovation to capture share of mind.

    Imagine you are at home opening your mail and you find an unsolicited brochure about some product or other. What do you do? Chances are you drop it in the trash. Well, the vast majority of leads to whom you send your brochures, flyers or emails to are going to do the same thing.

    When you want to get access to decision makers –particularly decision makers in big companies– product emails, brochures, …

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    Selling Professional Services

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Tips, Success

    Even the once exclusive professions of accounting, medicine, law and engineering have come to realise that they can no longer survive on referrals and reputation alone; that marketing the firm, whilst it stimulates awareness and interest, is not enough to generate the levels of new business needed to cover the costs of running a professional practice.

    Decades ago these professionals relied on their network of referrals. They developed a reputation amongst a select group of their friends that made them an attractive option that brought business to their door. Those days and that situation has however changed.

    Today, with universities turning out …

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    How to avoid the discount trap

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

    Do you frequently discount to win business? Does your brand seem to matter less to customers today? It’s no wonder. Customers can do a Google search of your product or service and, within minutes, learn about your product, your competitors, what customers think of you, and find the lowest prices. So, with this kind of information at their fingertips, why would they need to meet with a salesperson?

    It’s a critical question in today’s selling environment – and one you need to think about if you want to sell better.

    In recent observations done by Barrett we noticed a …

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    Why self-discipline and being organised pays

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Self Development, Success

    Being organised makes good dollars and cents.

    To be on track with your sales quota you need to be organised, have a plan you stick to, and use a system for effective selling.

    It’s never too late to start, regardless of where you are on the road towards realising your sales targets. All it really takes is some thought and self-discipline to organise yourself.

    Probably the single biggest reason we see sales executives struggle to make sales targets is simply a lack of organisation or discipline to stick to a system of selling. We are not talking about a formula, but rather the …

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