summer-reading-list

2025 Summer Reading & Podcast List

By / / Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Life Skills, Sales Leadership, Sales Research, Sales Strategy

Just as the Australian summer holiday season is wrapping up and children are going back to school, many are turning their minds to the year ahead. 2024 had a lot of ups and downs, so in preparation for 2025, we’ve prepared a selection of some of our most popular articles and podcasts plus a video that will help you navigate your way forward with more clarity, confidence, and courage.

A Selection of Articles

Navigating the Brave New World of Sales

Sue Barrett and Alex Fein (Researcher, RedBridge) unpack the major shifts transforming the sales and business landscape. From navigating political volatility and …

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Barrett Sales Trend Report 2024 Logo 750x280

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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unlocking_success_in_sales

Unlocking Success: From Sales Challenges to Extraordinary Results

By / / Blog, Business Growth, Opportunity, Sales Growth, Sales Operations, Sales Research, Sales Results, Selling Better

In 30 seconds

We conducted some internal research here at Barrett by collating and analysing all the sales issues that appear in briefs that we have taken from clients and prospects since 2018. We found that nearly 90% of the problems faced by businesses we have engaged with can be attributed to two crucial areas – inconsistency in sales standards and sales coaching, and lack of clear go-to-market sales strategy and compelling value propositions – Why Us.

In 2.5 minutes

As we approach the end of the financial year here in Australia and businesses are looking at where to invest their budgets for …

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7 things you can do better

Why Collaboration, not Competition, leads to better sales results

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Collaboration, Common Ground, Competition, Ethics & Values, Sales Management, Sales performance, Sales Research, Sales Results, Selling Better, Success, Teamwork

Traditionally, the trope of the solo sales superstar or rainmaker has ruled the hearts and minds of many. Lauded for ‘single-handedly’ winning major accounts, bringing in the most amount of deals, or some other super human sales feat, what might surprise those not as familiar with sales and how selling works, is that none of these sales superstars could have achieved their results without the help of others, because no one lives or works in isolation.

Despite the popular myths, it has been known for nearly 20 years that the most successful salespeople are collaborators and team players, not individual sales …

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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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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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Sales Strategy: Ditch short-termism for robust sales strategies that drive more & better sales now & over the long-term

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Market Segmentation, Sales Research, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy, Success

‘If you don’t know where you’re going, every road will lead you nowhere’.

This famous quote is attributed to Henry Kissinger.

Why have I led with this quote? Sadly, in today’s busy, noisy and complex world, this quote represents a common state of affairs for many organisations’ CEOs, Executive Leaderships Teams, Sales Leaders and their sales teams who are struggling to make sales, retain their relevance with clients, and generate profit.

Instead, many are finding themselves in a race to the bottom price war which is not a strategy for success, instead it’s a reaction to short-termism which only leads to one’s …

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Is your sales problem really a sales leadership problem?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Research, Sales Results, Sales Talent

Of course every business wants their sales people to prospect more, close more sales, produce more consistent sales results, achieve their sales targets/budgets, have happy, loyal clients, and so on.

Some of the most common questions we hear from sales managers, sales leaders and CEOs are:

‘How do we get our sales people to sell more, produce better sales results?’

‘How do we find better sales people who can sell?’

If you look at the overwhelming content on the internet about sales problems and issues it focuses mostly on sales people and their performance…. “how to sell more” is the most common search term.

However, …

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Sales Trend 7 – Buyer Behaviours in Transition

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Procurement, Sales Research, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 7 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2016 Report is ‘Buyer Behaviours in Transition’.

For some time now we have seen many suppliers falling victim to the ‘race to the bottom’ mentality and tactics driven by various businesses and their procurement teams, especially from the oligopolies that exist here in Australia and the large international corporates.

As highlighted in 2015, our Sales Trend 1 was  ‘Race to the Bottom’ which showed the culmination of the disastrous effects of such short term thinking and tactics on business success, innovation and profitability.  While this …

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Women in Sales & Sales Leadership Research – Calling on you to be part of this project

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Research

Calling on women and men in sales and sales leadership roles to be a part of our Women in Sales & Sales Leadership Research(now closed).

Ten years ago Barrett undertook specific research into women in sales, which underpinned Sue Barrett’s ‘Sell Like A Woman’ concept. The initial 2006/07 research project aimed to understand the experiences of women in sales: their challenges, successes, experiences, and selling styles.  Over 150 women in sales and sales leadership participated in the research and shared their experiences. The initial results were interesting. Here are some of the demographics findings from 10 years ago:

  • A vast majority of …

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