Lessons for sales teams from an elite sportsman

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Competition, Education in Sales, Networking, Sales Leadership, Success

As part of our team’s regular coaching and development, a couple of weeks ago  Franco Crismann, one of Barrett’s BDMs went to a senior management business event at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) where Brian Lake, former Hawthorn/Western Bulldogs AFL footballer, spoke about maintaining a winning culture at work. Here is Franco’s report and reflections on the session:

“We had a room filled with C Level managers who were listening to a sports star talking about business and maintaining a winning culture at work, and I noticed them nodding in agreement. This, to be honest, surprised me.

What I …

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The new ABC of Sales – Always Be Coaching

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

Many of us may recall the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross that depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen and how they become desperate when the corporate office sends a trainer, Blake, to “motivate” them by announcing that, in one week, all except the top two salesmen will be fired.

Blake, played by Alec Baldwin unleashes a torrent of verbal abuse on the men as his form of training and one of his most infamous lines is ‘ABC – always be closing’.  This infamous line has become synonymous with some sales motivational speakers and some industries as …

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The power of language and intent in Sales & Coaching

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Coaching, Communication, Neuroscience, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Psychology

For the last 5 weeks I have been working around Australia helping a major client get their sales leadership team ready to roll out their new Sales Strategy and Sales Process, their version of ‘the way we sell around here’. It’s been pretty exciting and extremely well received. Why? The language we are using is clear, simple, strong and positive. Our intent is purposeful and inspiring. There is a compelling reason to want to be a part of this new era. People can see a clear pathway forward.

Part of this sales strategy and sales process roll out …

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Insights from the 2016 Sales Trends Business Breakfast

By / / Sales Leadership, Sales Trends

This week saw Barrett host our third Annual Sales Trends Business Breakfast at The Point, Albert Park in Melbourne.  With the venue overlooking the beautiful Albert Park Lake amidst rowers rowing and the sun rising, 90 senior business and sales leaders joined us to explore this year’s Sales Trends theme of ‘Less is More’ and hear from our special guest speakers James Thomson, Companies and Markets Editor of The Australian Financial Review and Grant Blackley, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo.

Following my overview of the 12 Sales Trends for 2016, James Thomson gave …

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Women in Sales Leadership: advice to my younger self

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Life Skills, Sales Leadership, Wellbeing

Over 2 days on 5 & 6 April 2016 I had the privilege of chairing the 2016 Women in Sales Leadership Conference in Sydney, Australia. The theme for the event was ‘Advice to my younger self’.

We had over 20 senior sales leaders from around Australia presenting to a room full of women in sales and sales leadership roles from a range of industries. We had young women in their 20’s embarking on their sales careers through to many senior sales leaders with 30+ years’ experience in sales and sales leadership.

Interestingly, unlike other sales conferences I have attended over the years, …

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Clarity & Purpose – a recap of 2015

By / / Role Clarity, Sales Leadership

This is our last sales blog for 2015,  our first blog for 2016 will be out the week of January 11th.

For our clients and the team at Barrett, 2015 has been the year of clarity and purpose with many of our clients being able to put in place sound sales strategies, sales operations frameworks and development programs to set up their sales teams for success in 2016 and beyond.

Not happy dealing with the status quo, these smart business leaders have been looking at how they can transition their sales teams and businesses from being:

  • product driven to ideas and solutions driven
  • individualistic …

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Lessons for Sales from ‘Good to Great’

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Sales Results, Sales Talent, Self Development, Success

Jim Collins (author of “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t”) stimulates a thought that many sales managers should be asking themselves right now: “What makes good salespeople great?”

At Barrett we work with sales managers and salespeople every day, and recently asked that question of a number of people in both categories. The response wasn’t that startling. What Barrett learned is that few sales managers, and even fewer salespeople, could actually define what “great” selling actually means. This has confirmed Barrett’s findings that many salespeople let themselves down because they …

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Cracking the Sales Myth of Hunters & Farmers

By / / Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Talent

Many so called “experts” claim that there are two types of salespeople – Hunters and Farmers.

Salespeople, so these experts claim, are either one or the other. Consequently they fit one sales position or another. In our experience, having spent decades working with salespeople at every level in a wide variety of segments, salespeople don’t fit into these neat stereotypes.

The myth about Hunters and Farmers in Selling has been overtaken by a business reality.

Before we crack the myth let’s take a look at where the concept came from in the first place.

The person credited with starting the concept …

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Survival of the Adaptive P2: Develop a well-informed sales force

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Leadership, Sales Skills, Sales Talent

This series of ‘Survival of the Adaptive’ articles will look at the key things we need to do as sales teams to contend with the many changes afoot in our 21st century world and market place.

Part 2 is all about developing a well-informed sales force

A decade ago, when traditional product-pushing sales were all that mattered, most sales leaders employed and trained well motivated salespeople – usually with what they referred to as “industry experience”. Today that is hardly enough!

Many of these sales leaders now confess to being less certain that industry experience or having …

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Sales Trend 7 – Beyond Sales KPIs

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Trends

The 2015 Sales Trend 7 – Beyond Sales KPIs see our focus shifting to how we can get closer to the moments of truth and measure sales effectiveness in a complex world. In a nutshell, this trend is showing leadership moving from a deficiency orientation (i.e. performance management when things go wrong) to a competency orientation (i.e. coaching people to achieve their best performance). It is important to note that this trend also requires a mindset shift amongst the managers involved in such a transformation.

Most companies at some stage in their history have struggled with identifying the …

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