12 Sales Trends for 2016: Sales Trend 1 – Beyond Profit Erosion

By / / Sales Research, Sales Strategy, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 1 of Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2016 is “Beyond Profit Erosion”.

After decades of revenue and profit growth markets are no longer what they used to be. The current situation of profit erosion has been decades in the making with a combination of factors including:

  • Low interest rates and the abundance of cheap money creating the conditions for growth mainly through Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Cost cutting to reduce duplication and redundancies and grow profits
  • Technology and automation having taken over many labour intensive processes
  • Buyers’ stripping apart of complex offers into their individual parts thus diminishing or dismissing the …

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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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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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Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Finding Value beyond Price

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Procurement, Sales Research

A call to action – be a part of a ground breaking research project and tell us what you think about the current state of Buyer / Seller Relationships. (See our survey link below)

We have previously written about the importance of healthy buyer-supplier relationships and how we are approaching a rather worrying state where buyers are chasing suppliers in a race to the bottom.

But, what can be done to improve the buyer-supplier relationship and avoid this outcome? What can suppliers do?

As a supplier, do you feel valued by your buyer organisations? That your insights are sought, that …

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How to avoid the ‘Race to the Bottom’ & mutual destruction

By / / Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Research, Sales Trends

The recent news about Coles and Woolworths being taken to task by the ACCC for their questionable dealings with suppliers has highlighted a major problem plaguing customer-supplier relationships.

Barrett’s first Sales Trend for 2015 is ‘Race to the Bottom’ because of the drastic impact this unsustainable pricing strategy is having on sales and buyer relationships. Edward Rayner, a procurement specialist gave us important insights into this major issue and presented some important questions and strategies sales teams can employ to help avoid mutual destruction.

Here are some of Rayner’s findings.

A customer-supplier engagement strategy that …

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12 Sales Trends Reports for 2015 – Transparency and The Middle Path – The Summary

By / / Sales Culture, Sales Research, Sales Tips, Sales Trends

The theme for Barrett’s Sales Trends for 2015 is ‘Transparency and the Middle Path’. This theme stems from the idea of everything in moderation and a new openness whether by choice or not.

Over the years, salespeople and organisations have often focused solely on a single idea, shifting from one to the other as strategies proved ineffective. More recently, there has been a realisation that a more balanced approach (where a number of different aspects are given equal weighting) is potentially more appropriate and more effective for their businesses, especially in an increasingly complex world. This makes sense; however, it isn’t …

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What we cannot control in sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Competition, Resilience, Sales Research, Sales Strategy

Last week we talked about what we can control and influence in sales, especially in uncertain times.  This week is looking at what we cannot control in sales and how to learn to live with it.

What (and who) we cannot control

Let’s face it, we operate in a complex world where many things are outside our direct control and influence, yet these very things can influence and affect ourselves, our clients, markets, and communities. There are some very interesting frameworks that can help us separate out a range of factors that affect our market places, communities, and countries.

  • [1]PEST analysis (‘Political, Economic, …

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How to keep your sales wheels turning

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Research, Sales Training, Self Development

Maintaining momentum in a sales career requires a proactive, disciplined approach. There are many things to consider and put together to achieve an effective selling week and sales year. The onus is on us, the salesperson, to make the most of what we have. However, many sales people unfortunately adopt the approach that it is their company’s responsibility to train and educate them, to provide everything they need before they can truly be effective as sales people.

By contrast, enlightened, highly effective sales people recognise that they need to invest in themselves, invest in their own learning and continuous development, make …

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12 Sales Trends for 2014 – The Thinking Sales Organisation

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Research

As 2013 comes to a close we firstly wanted to thank all our loyal readers for their continued support of our work. We also thought you would like to get a sneak peek of our Annual 12 Sales Trends Report for 2014. With the unprecedented changes we are experiencing as a result of the digital revolution and the commoditisation of quality we can no longer manage sales by processes and numbers alone – it’s become a thinking person’s game.   As a result, the Barrett Consulting Group’s annual Sales Trends Report for 2014 has selected the theme: “The Thinking Sales Organisation”. Sales operations …

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The History of Sales Methodologies

By / / Business Acumen, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Research

Have you ever wondered just how many sales methodologies are out there and which ones work and which ones don’t?

Maybe you haven’t given much conscious thought to this subject but then again maybe you have.  Either way, if you are in sales or run a sales team or business and want to be more effective and successful it’s critical that you know what sales methodology will work best for you and your customers.

Unfortunately, the business world has been littered with more dubious sales methodologies than there are effective ones. Our business, at Barrett, is to …

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