Necessity is the mother of invention: How to keep on selling better during COVID-19

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Wellbeing

As the world responds to contain the COVID-19 disease, we want to make sure that your and our teams stay safe so we are adjusting our commitments and activities in accordance to current regulations.

We also understand that for businesses these are troubling times, but there are ways forward. As they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. We want to stay by your side and help you assess your situation, whether that be devising a sales strategy in line with the new reality, or helping your staff keep the business going in a feasible and responsible way. At Barrett we …

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The Noble Profession of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Self Development, Selling Better, Success

The statement ‘The noble profession of Selling’ may sit well with some. While many others would find ways to say everything to the contrary, bringing up stories about how they or others were ripped off by shonky salespeople. I mean why is it that when someone’s deceived by someone else they say ‘they’ve done a sales job on them’? There’s nothing noble about that, you’d agree.

In a world where it’s too easy to engage and influence people with catchy slogans and memes that can propagate negative stereotypes, fear of the other, division, misinformation and myths, and keep people ignorant or …

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Crowdsourcing Sales Forecasting to deliver better certainty

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Forecasting, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Forecasting, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Selling Better, Success

People love certainty, especially when it comes to business. Which is why sales forecasting and sales pipeline management can often be the bane of sales leaders and their sales teams’ lives with senior management constantly on their backs wanting to know what deals will land and when, and when the revenue will start to come in. It’s relentless.

So given the current state of the world and the climate of uncertainty, it’s a good time to look at some of the latest thinking and work being done to improve the certainty of sales forecasting and pipeline management.

Current Situation with Sales Forecasting

Tracking …

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Celebrating 25 years of Helping People & Businesses Sell Better

By / / Education in Sales, Entrepreneurship, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Training, Selling Better

The 9th January, 2020 marks 25 years in business for Barrett.

25 years of helping people and businesses sell better.

25 years of exploration, research, experimentation, creation, building, encouragement and promotion of, and learning and education in ethical human centred sales systems, strategies, processes and practices.

25 years of a self-funded research project focused on creating The Selling Better Movement with the hope it will help people understand that there’s a better way of doing business.

A way in which we can all be prosperous.

I started the business out of my home office with $3,000 in capital on 9 January, 1995 with an idea …

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Selling Better, Faster – Total Sales Team Turnaround

By / / Case study, Optimism, Sales Benchmarking, Sales Consulting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales performance, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, sales-process-map, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Systems Thinking

I’m feeling elated and vindicated yet again.

I’m feeling very optimistic about the future of sales systems and sales stewardship.

Two weeks ago I sat down with a very large key B2B client of ours to do a two year retrospective on their Selling Better Project. Considering where we started with this Executive General Manager  discussing his major issues, concerns, ideas and opportunities around their lack of sales strategy, sales operational framework and sales processes, the lack of stewardship and coordinated discipline within the national sales team, the turnaround and results have been thrilling on many levels:

  • Sales are up 8% and steadily …

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The Sales Juggling Act: how to keep your eye on the sales prize

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better

Sales is integral to business. Without sales we don’t have a business.

But running a sales operation, leading the sales effort and guiding and directing a sales team can be a constant juggling act. Sales operations have many moving parts and they all require constant vigilance and effective decision making. The execution risk is always high.

Sales operations and teams are also fragile ecosystems. Set up well to perform to a standard, they require constant hands-on leadership and stewardship; it’s like keeping a set of spinning plates spinning. Take your eyes off those sales plates for a second and everything can come …

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Avoiding a Kodak Moment: A positive Case Study on managing change for better sales & business

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Success

A positive Case Study on managing change, pain and quick wins in line with a Long Term Strategy

Human beings, by and large, are notorious for staying with what is familiar to them and not wanting to ‘rock the boat’, instead chasing the familiar quick fix, the easy option, that which feels safe and comfortable.

‘Why not get as much out of today as I can and to hell with the future’. Boom and bust mentality.

‘We’ve always done it this way, no need to change’. Staying in our comfort zone mentality.

‘If it’s not broken, why fix it?’ Not keeping an open mind …

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Sales Trend 4 – Trust improves the Learning and Development culture

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

Sales Trend 4 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2019 explores how working within a culture of mistrust affects salespeople and their ability to develop trusted relationships with clients.

Building trust is key to sustainable long term sales relationships. This is surprisingly true even for very large B2B sales, despite the availability of hard facts on the buying company’s reliability, cash flow, payment morale, etc. Trust is still key to long term relationships that doesn’t require controlling and compliance functions all the time.

Creating and earning trust is therefore a skill salespeople have to master, and indeed, a lot …

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2019 Sales Trends Event  – Trust me, I’m in Sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Procurement, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Sales Research, Sales Trends, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Sustainability & Environment

On 27 March 2019 we hosted our 7th Sales Trends Business Breakfast celebrating the 10th edition of the Barrett Annual 12 Sales Trends Report with Trust as our central theme.

Over 120 people attended the event, mostly business people but we also had the Year 11 International Baccalaureate Student Representatives of the Melbourne Montessori School attend to further their knowledge and education as they study Business Management.

The attendees heard from our special guest speakers, Suzanne Paynter, Strategy and Policy Advisor for the Future Business Council, and Andrew Smith, Head of Business Customer at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and myself, where we …

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