How to avoid the discount trap

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

Do you frequently discount to win business? Does your brand seem to matter less to customers today? It’s no wonder. Customers can do a Google search of your product or service and, within minutes, learn about your product, your competitors, what customers think of you, and find the lowest prices. So, with this kind of information at their fingertips, why would they need to meet with a salesperson?

It’s a critical question in today’s selling environment – and one you need to think about if you want to sell better.

In recent observations done by Barrett we noticed a …

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Why self-discipline and being organised pays

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Tips, Self Development, Success

Being organised makes good dollars and cents.

To be on track with your sales quota you need to be organised, have a plan you stick to, and use a system for effective selling.

It’s never too late to start, regardless of where you are on the road towards realising your sales targets. All it really takes is some thought and self-discipline to organise yourself.

Probably the single biggest reason we see sales executives struggle to make sales targets is simply a lack of organisation or discipline to stick to a system of selling. We are not talking about a formula, but rather the …

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Sales Trend 10 – The evolution in sales incentive plans

By / / Sales Results, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 10 from our  12 Sales Trends for 2016 is ‘The evolution in sales incentive plans’.

With the growing complexity in many markets and the rise of selling in complex solutions this sales trend tells of the shift towards more customised variable Sales Incentive Programs (SIPs) taking into account team selling, complex solutions, longer sales cycles, and so on.  Whereas ‘Lone Ranger’ commission schemes, which have an extrinsic appeal because they are simple, are primarily on the way out as they are only suitable in very limited circumstances these days.

Sales incentive programs (SIPs) constitute a major cost …

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How to give every salesperson the best start to their sales career

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Talent, Sales Tips, Strategy

This is how most salespeople are inducted into their sales careers:

“Welcome to our team, Rebecca. It’s great to have you on board. Here is your list of ABC accounts and the products brochure which outlines all the products we sell. I also want you to meet our best salesperson, Ben. He is awesome. As part of your induction I want you to go out on the road and learn to be just like Ben.”

That’s it, give or take a few iterations.

Rebecca is thrown in the deep end and at best asked to mimic Ben with no real context, no reference …

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Sales Trend 9 – Marketing technology for better sales results

By / / Brand & Reputation, Collaboration, CRM, Marketing, Sales Forecasting, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Pipeline, Sales Results, Sales Trends

Guest co-author: David Hubbard CEO, Founder and Revenue Growth Expert for Marketing Outfield, New York, USA

Sales Trend 9 from our  12 Sales Trends Report for 2016 is about using Marketing technology for better sales results.

Sales and Marketing Technology – Which Trends Should You Pay Attention To?

No wonder we are confused. The number of vendors providing Advertising, Marketing OR Sales technology “solutions” has exploded in the last couple of years with it becoming a large multi-billion dollar industry with revenues growing at double digit percentages annually. There are now over 3000 vendors (and more in …

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Why Marketing can’t fix a Sales Problem

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Sales Results, Success

When sales start to dry up or the business doesn’t seem to be getting traction with customers, many small to medium (SME) sized businesses will usually turn to Marketing in the first, and often only instance, as their preferred solution to fixing poor sales results.

Why? Because many people have been taught to think they have a marketing problem when they actually have a sales problem.

As a result, many start-ups and SME businesses have failed to get traction and then fallen over because they didn’t address their sales problem with the right sales solution, instead relying on marketing.

Unless you are an …

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What’s the right Sales Conversion Ratio for my sales team?

By / / Prospecting, Sales Forecasting, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Results, Sales Tips

At Barrett, we get asked a lot about what is the right sales conversion ratio for sales teams.

And our answer is to offer more questions such as:

  • Are the market(s) you are targeting in growth, mature, decline, or saturation mode?
  • What value propositions are you taking to market to your prospective clients in terms of commodity low cost options or value beyond product and price, and ROI?
  • How clear is your sales messaging to capture the share of mind of your target markets and enable your salespeople to be very clear and concise about the value they bring when prospecting and selling?
  • How effective …

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How to create a new sales routine that delivers results

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Training

We all know that creating a better sales team, better sales culture, better sales leadership and better sales strategy that delivers better sales results does not happen by attending the occasional sales training workshop. Though it doesn’t stop sales leaders from opting for the ‘quick fix’ annual sales workshop to show that they are ‘doing something’ to drive better sales results. In short, these leaders would be better off doing nothing and saving their money, time and effort.

Metaphorically speaking, the sales training workshop (or 1-5 days depending on how much money you have to spend) is the tail of the …

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Does your sales force match what you are selling?

By / / Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Talent

One size does not fit all when it comes to building the right type of sales force for what you are selling; yet many professionals treat selling as a homogeneous skill set, expecting salespeople to be able to sell anything.

Or another fatal mistake is to assume that industry experience and knowledge alone is all that is required. For too many years sales managers have had industry experience as their number one selection criteria for salespeople. The problem with this is that they usually get the same old people with the same old ideas and the same old results.

The fact is …

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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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