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Are They Ready to Lead?

By / / Blog, Leadership, Learning and Development, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management

In 30 seconds

Promoting salespeople to managing positions without upskilling them appropriately is like putting someone who is great at cooking for their family in charge of a full-scale restaurant kitchen.

When top salespeople are promoted to leadership positions, they need a different skillset to be successful in this new role, like conflict resolution, coaching, delegation and empowerment, and strategy.

Sales leadership is not just another obvious step up the sales career ladder. It’s a transition into an entirely different role.

In 2 minutes

When an employee moves to a different department or needs to operate new equipment or software, upskilling them through training is …

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The Silent Coach

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management

We’ve all seen the Business Development Managers (BDMs) who talk the talk of prospecting: they attend conferences, absorb sales advice, and quote best practices. Yet, when it’s time to act – to pick up the phone and engage – they hesitate. As a result, their skills remain untapped, opportunities slip by, and their potential goes unrealised.

This scenario finds a surprising parallel in the world of sales management. Consider a sales manager, equipped with coaching skills and development tools, overseeing a team poised for support. This setup holds tremendous potential to unlock greatness within the team. However, much like the BDM …

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Striking Balance – Barrett’s 12 Sales & Business Trends for 2024

By / / Blog, Business Growth, Collaboration, Communication, Customer experience, Customer Service, Customer-centric, Digital credentials, Education in Sales, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Human-centred, Hybrid Selling, Leadership, Learning and Development, Opportunity, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Growth, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Methodology, Sales Operations, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Soft skills, Solution Selling, Strategy, Success, Value Based Selling

In December 2023 we published Barrett’s 12 Sales & Business Trends for 2024. This is a summary of that report, in case you missed it.

For decades, the business world has been dominated by what looked like opposites to choose from. You could be a hunter or a gatherer, a manager or a leader.

These concepts have been pitched to the business community as opposing and mutually exclusive choices, forcing a binary mindset. These polarisations don’t apply to modern businesses and sales operations – and they haven’t served us well for some time now.

In 2023 we’ve worked with businesses across industries and …

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Sales Trend 2: Leadership AND Management

By / / Blog, Leadership, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Trends

This is Sales Trend 2 from Barrett’s 12 Business and Sales Trends for 2024. You can download the full report here.

In 30 seconds

For the last few decades, developing and cultivating leadership qualities has been a key trend and has become a billion-dollar global industry. However, this often neglects essential business and people management skills. While there was a surge in prioritising leadership, businesses are now realising the importance of building effective systems and processes for effective team operation. This trend recognises that successful sales leaders must balance both leadership and management roles to meet team and marketplace …

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12 Sales & Business Trends for 2024 – Striking Balance

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Blog, Customer Service, Sales Growth, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Sales Trends

For decades, the business world has been dominated by what looked like opposites to choose from. You could be a hunter or a gatherer, a manager or a leader.

These concepts have been pitched to the business community as opposing and mutually exclusive choices, forcing a binary mindset. These polarisations don’t apply to modern businesses and sales operations – and they haven’t served us well for some time now.

In 2023 we’ve worked with businesses across industries and we’ve seen firsthand how sales teams and operations that embrace a holistic mindset fare better in both results and team wellbeing.

This report is about …

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What Sales Mapping Projects Can Reveal

By / / Blog, Business Growth, Leadership, Sales Leadership, Sales Process Maps, sales-process-map, Uncategorized

In 30 seconds

Sales process mapping is essential for delivering sales strategies and setting quality standards for sales and service teams. Beyond its known benefits, it uncovers valuable insights. For instance, one company’s overly strict credit department rejected many good deals, only revealed through mapping. Another organisation’s convoluted client engagement process led to internal conflicts and client dissatisfaction, causing 50% of new clients to leave within a few months of being onboarded. Such information is invaluable to leadership for transformation. Openness to challenging findings is key. Sales and service processes, being deeply human experiences, require assessment, mapping, alignment with business goals, …

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Why We Desperately Need Human-Centred Leaders

By / / Blog, Human-centred, Leadership, Sales Leadership, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 9 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2023 is about the rise of human-centred leadership principles and practices.

By guest author DUANE ATTREE // former Managing Director of POTENTIAL(X), Chief Commercial & Development Officer, BEAMTREE and now EXPLORER AT LARGE, in collaboration with Sue Barrett.

In 30 seconds

Leadership in the past 50-70 years emphasised charisma, strength, and wealth, but this model faces challenges. Current global issues, stagnating productivity, and employee disengagement demand a shift towards human-centred leadership. This approach prioritises people, empathy, and inclusivity, extending beyond technical skills. Empathy, particularly, is crucial for understanding others’ …

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Leading With Clarity & Courage

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management

In 30 seconds

Command and control or administration-focused leaders hinder progress and create toxic environments. Servant and transformational leadership styles provide better alternatives. By prioritising employees’ needs, fostering communication, and encouraging innovation, servant leaders create thriving organisations. Transformational leaders inspire growth, building positive work environments. Effective leadership demands courage and clarity, enabling tough decision-making and transparent communication. Inspiring teams requires articulating a vision, embracing risk, and instilling confidence. By fostering trust and collaboration, leaders drive sustainable outcomes.

In 2.5 minutes

What type of leader would you prefer?

  • One who likes to control everything and everyone around them, only letting people know something if it …

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Sales Performance – what are we really measuring?

By / / Blog, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales performance, Sales Results

The prevalent way of measuring sales performance is a combination of KPIs. These include the obvious sales results, and a few others, like number of calls and meetings, new opportunities, etc.

However, longer sales cycles and more complex ways of selling like Solution Selling and Value Based Selling, or segmentation approaches like Strategic / Key Account Management demand a more sophisticated approach to measuring effectiveness. The biggest challenge when measuring the performance of our sales teams is how to measure quality rather than just quantity of sales results.

Leaders need to move from a deficiency orientation …

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