how-do-I-think-and-act-like-Sully

How do I think and act like Sully?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, covid-19, Customer Service, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Psychology, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy

Do you remember the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York City in 2009?

Your business might not have been struck directly – like Captain Sullenberger’s plane had been hit by a flock of geese – but the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis has hit us all directly or indirectly creating with it the challenges and opportunities to keep your business going and your teams engaged, productive and sales fit while working remotely or still in the field with your clients. The opportunity during what might be a more quiet time for many businesses is to adjust …

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How to stay open for business: Selling Better during this crisis and beyond.

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, covid-19, Education in Sales, Opportunity, Resilience, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Psychology, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Wellbeing

Do you remember the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York City in 2009?

Both engines of the plane lost thrust after colliding with a flock of geese. The plane was going to crash. There was no time to get anywhere else safely. The pilot, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, with the help of his co-pilot and crew landed the plane on the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survived. 208 seconds passed from the moment the plane lost power to the safe landing.

The most important factors in this successful landing were that the captain and co-pilot were …

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Necessity is the mother of invention: How to keep on selling better during COVID-19

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Wellbeing

As the world responds to contain the COVID-19 disease, we want to make sure that your and our teams stay safe so we are adjusting our commitments and activities in accordance to current regulations.

We also understand that for businesses these are troubling times, but there are ways forward. As they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. We want to stay by your side and help you assess your situation, whether that be devising a sales strategy in line with the new reality, or helping your staff keep the business going in a feasible and responsible way. At Barrett we …

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Selling Better, Faster using Real Time Sales Education

By / / Coaching, Collaboration, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Environment & Sustainability, Optimism, Sales Coaching, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales performance, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training, sales-process-map, Selling Better, Solution Selling

I’m feeling elated.

I’m feeling vindicated.

I’m feeling very optimistic about the future of sales education and sales mastery.

Three weeks ago we started working with and coaching a telesales team of 9 people based in regional NSW.

Week one post the first session, sales had already started to improve and by week three, this sales team had their best sales week ever. The sales leader revealed this in the session we had this week and attributed it to the training we are doing.

Now that’s something to be optimistic about.

How did we do this?

Our focus was to help them sell better, faster using real …

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The Holy Trinity of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Buying, Collaboration, Common Ground, Communication, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Solution Selling

This post has been inspired by my colleague, Ben Shute, who I work arm in arm with bridging the divide between sales and procurement. He wrote about the Holy Trinity of Procurement Skills and so challenged me to do the same for Sales.

Here is my contribution.

The profession of selling requires a whole range of capabilities. It’s hard to know where to begin to define the 3 core elements for sales – the Holy Trinity of Selling.

So I’ll start with the master categories of Knowledge, Skills and Mindset from Barrett’s Sales Competency Dictionary.

Knowledge

Let’s …

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What should I be looking for in a good sales recruit?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Role Clarity, Sales Skills, Sales Talent

What should I be looking for in a good sales recruit?

This is a vexing question for many sales and business leaders.

And some of the answers we still hear aren’t very helpful either.

‘They must be hunters.’

‘They need to be hungry.’

‘They’ve got to be able to close deals.’

‘They must have a mortgage and family so they are ‘motivated’ to sell more.’

‘They must have industry experience.’

Notice anything familiar about most of these answers?

They are all stuck in the ‘aggressive, self-serving, desperate approach to selling’ paradigm which is not what good selling actually is …

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The Power of Assumptions

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Communication, Customer Service, Ethics & Values, Sales Skills, Sales Tips
By guest writer Jens Hartmann, Head of L&D, Barrett

Driving away customers

Have you ever come across a salesperson making assumptions about you, your needs and expectations, or your experience? Then you are probably aware of how powerful these assumptions can be – at driving you away as a customer.

We experienced this recently. While undergoing renovations on our home, we ordered a new bathtub -stand alone, a very plain and symmetrical design – straight from a local manufacturer. However, when it got delivered after some 2 months or so, towards the end of the bathroom renovations as planned, it was not symmetrical …

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6 Tips on How to Sell Value and Reposition Price – Take 2

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Competition, Education in Sales, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better

Another week goes by and another dozen stories of businesses discounting prices (or being asked to do so by their prospects or clients) appear. This week we heard about a few examples:

  • a business being asked by a prospect to ‘give us a better price because you are doing a few things with us’,
  • a business being told by a client, midway through a project, that ‘they would love to keep on working with them but competitor XYZ can now do it for 25% less because they can bring in cheaper consultants from overseas ’, and
  • another business being asked to give a …

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    Someone has to sell, or you don’t have a business

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

    Someone has to do the selling or you don’t have a business.

    I have met many people over the years who have great ideas, skills, processes or inventions but hate the thought of selling.

    They usually come from two camps:

    Camp 1: Those people who understand they have to sell in order to have a business but just do not know how to do it. They often harbour some fears and anxieties about selling because of its bad public reputation and can feel overwhelmed about what they have to do. However, I find these people are willing to have a go.

    I will gladly …

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    Sales Tips for everyday life situations

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Life Skills, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

    Whether we are a salesperson or not, there are times in our daily lives when knowing how to sell well turns often awkward situations into positive outcomes for everyone.

    We are social animals. We rely on others for our existence which means we need to engage with others in some way to be able to live effectively and have a meaningful existence.

    Let’s look at the new school year as an example: there are often many new faces, new people to meet and people to interact with across the year whether you want to or not.

    This means that people find …

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