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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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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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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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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Why engineers, technicians & scientists might make the best salespeople in the 21st Century

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Innovation, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Pioneer, Sales Talent

It has been a long held belief that extroverts made the best salespeople; the gift of the gab, being charming and persuasive, telling a good story, people oriented and friendly, and all that. However, given the complexity of our world and the ever increasing need to make well informed decisions and manage risk before we buy, our warm, chatty, convivial friends may need to learn a lesson or two from the more ambiverted/ introverted types many of whom are deep thinking techies, geeks and nerds. More about the value of introversion in next week’s piece.

Let’s look at the merit of …

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How to create a positive buying experience

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

To attract new clients we need to create a positive buying experience for them.

This usually involves a combination of marketing activities and a salesperson in the first instance.

To retain clients we need to create another positive buying experience for them, and another and another, and another.

This usually involves more than just the salesperson, this can now involve a whole range of people from those who deliver, assess, implement, design, customise, coach, facilitate, create whatever has been purchased, to those who handle customer service enquiries, those in credit departments managing payments, those in chat rooms rendering tech support …

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Sales Trend 3 – Selling is everybody’s business

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 3 of Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends for 2016 is Selling is everybody’s business.

For a long time businesses have been focusing on how to achieve better sales results. Organisations with varying levels of maturity and insight have embarked on many different journeys to get there. Some have been very savvy and have taken a holistic systems approach putting in place sound sales strategies, market segmentation plans underpinned by clear sales processes, standards and values that inform their sales teams. Some organisations tried other alternatives, with varied levels of success, from good training systems to silver bullet solutions that …

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How to sell better in uncertain times

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips

You could be forgiven for starting off 2016 in a rather pessimistic manner given all the ‘doom and gloom’ being spread about economic growth issues, the decline of share markets across the globe and talk of another GFC. Don’t get me wrong, we need to be vigilant and able to adapt and, even if everything that is being predicted turns out to be true, we still need to keep moving forward and seek out the right opportunities to focus on.

In short, how do we keep our head when everyone else around us is losing theirs?

There are those of us who …

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‘How we sell around here’ equals sales success

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Management, Sales Research, Sales Results

Many years ago, and for many years, when salespeople were recruited into the sales team of a business they would be schooled in ‘how we sell around here’.

New salespeople regardless of their experience would be introduced to the business’ sales plan, target markets and customer segments, the product range, the current sales processes, tools and templates, and so on. Sales managers would put these new recruits through their paces making sure that they knew how to sell.

Now, I admit some of the sales processes these new sales recruits were schooled in where not always ideal or even ethical, but the …

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