Sales Reporting – Why Bother?

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

Recently, I met a very impressive young Sales Manager. Let’s call him Sam. Sam knew his sales stuff. He knew what to look for when it came to accurate reporting of sales data. Nothing too complicated. He was conscious of focussing on the key measures and not overloading his sales team with too much reporting because he wanted his sales team out there selling instead of being glorified administrators.

Sam is my kind of sales manager. There for his people and his company making sure that his sales team knew exactly what was expected of them in terms …

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Sales Trend 5 – The New Accountability in Holistic (sales) Learning

By / / Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Sales Trends, Self Development

Sales Trend 5 of our Sales Trends Report for 2015 is about the new accountability is holistic learning. Learning and Development (L&D) across the board, and especially in sales, has slowly but continuously been changing over the past few years. There are a variety of factors influencing this recent development. The ongoing challenge through these changes has been that it is not a single “trend” that has determined the necessary adjustments to be made to keep up with developments in the area, but a number of aggregated trends and factors that have simultaneously been responsible for supplying …

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Getting your sales perspective in 2015

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills, Value Based Selling

Perspective Taking is a critical life skill that can serve us well no matter what role we are in.

Perspective Taking is also a vital sales skill if we want to develop viable relationships with clients, influence people to consider and buy our offerings, grow sales and lead successful sales careers.

What is Perspective Taking?
Perspective Taking is the act of viewing a situation, or understanding a concept, from an alternate point-of-view. Perspective Taking is the process of temporarily suspending one’s own point-of-view in order to view a situation as someone else might. This process does not necessitate any form of affinity, …

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20 years of improving sales teams & operations. What’s changed?

By / / Collaboration, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, CRM, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Social Media, Vision, Mission & Purpose

The 9th January 2015 marks 20 years in business for Barrett Consulting Group.

Twenty years of helping companies, sales leaders and their salespeople improve their sales operations and their sales capabilities.

Twenty years of helping salespeople and buyers have better, more mutually rewarding experiences, setting a fairer exchange of value.

As I moved toward this 20th anniversary, I started to muse upon what the sales world was like 20 years ago, compared to what it is like now. Here are just some of my initial musings and observations.

A lot has changed in the sales world over the last 20 years, some changes for …

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Don’t be fooled! Why telephone prospecting is still critical to sales success

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Prospecting, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Solution Selling

In tough markets when sales are harder to come by whether it be from increased competition or clients being more hesitant to commit and buy, don’t become your own worst enemy and rely on the marketing efforts of your company or emails or falling into the trap of believing the hype about Social Selling saving your sales day. You still need to get on the phone and engage the people in your market places whom you want and need to get in front of and sell to.

After more than 30 years in selling with at least 10-15 years of those …

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Are you serious?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Success

Today’s article is a bit of a rant I have to admit. I wrote the text below after one of those phone calls I receive, and as you may tell, I was a bit upset afterwards. Bear with me though, I’m sure you’ll see the point I’m trying to make.

Have you ever considered how much it costs and how much effort it takes to become and remain a highly skilled professional these days? Think about a competent marketing manager, a skilled engineer or IT specialist, a capable accountant, bookkeeper, publicist or journalist, a reliable chef, event manager or hairdresser? We’re …

Are you serious? Read Post »

The 7 benefits of Online Sales Training

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Essentials, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Self Development, Success

Have you ever tried online sales training? Why not try this complimentary Sales Essentials Module – ethics, philosophy and history of selling? Why? Because the world of sales education and training is evolving and online sales training is starting to take hold. Whilst classroom training will always have its place, here are 7 reasons you might like to include online sales training in your repertoire.

  • Cost Saving: It is no secret that classroom based training can be extremely costly. Not only is the cost of the training event usually high, we also have to consider travel expenses, accommodation, and most …

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    Salespeople In The Deep End (Again)

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Skills, Sales Training

    Last week I received a call from a woman (let’s call her Tracy for the purpose of this article) desperately seeking help on how to sell.  Tracy had been in her role for 5 months and all that time had not received any guidance, advice, coaching or support from her managers on how to sell her products or who to sell them to. She had never been in a sales role before and did not work in the vicinity of the head office.  She was out there on her own …

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    Are you capitalising on your Prime Selling Time?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Prospecting, Sales Skills

    If you watch successful sales people go about their daily business activities you will notice that they lead a very disciplined life – they know what they need to do each day and when they need to do these key activities. They make sure they make time for the important stuff and they hardly ever miss a beat. They know there is no excuse for not making prospecting calls or forgetting to do research.  There is no excuse for not getting proposals in on time or not scheduling client meetings in an organized fashion or forgetting to follow up when …

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    Why addressing Risk is 3 times more important than the benefits

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Education in Sales, Neuroscience in Sales, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills

    Plenty of time and effort is put into talking up the benefits of our products and services in a selling situation. Sales people often focus on why the benefits are important to our clients and how our client will be better off if they buy from us, etc.  This has been the mainstay of sales for years. Think of all the time, effort and money that goes into meetings, brainstorming sessions, designing and creating glossy brochures and marketing materials (hard copy and virtual) to define and promote the benefits of what we do and offer. …

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