Want to find & own uncontested markets? Try Blue Ocean Strategy

By / / Business Acumen, Competition, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy, Success

In today’s cluttered business landscape and global marketplace, finding uncontested markets to sell into and own, free of competition, at least for the foreseeable future, is getting harder, and harder and harder.

Developing innovative ideas that turn into something new, unique and viable, are not easy to copy, and deliver revenue and healthy margins is equally tough.

Rethinking our marketplaces, our traditional customers and non-customers, and how we sell and deliver real value to them, that they are prepared to pay for, well that’s another difficult challenge too.

Most businesses these days find that they are increasingly competing head to …

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The differences between business, sales, and marketing strategies

By / / Marketing, Sales Strategy, Social Sales, Strategy

This week we thought we would touch on the differences between business, sales, and marketing strategies. The reason for that is that there’s usually confusion between sales and marketing strategies. To avoid confusion, it’s always good to look at definitions.

Michael Porter defines strategy as the set of choices that define a company’s distinctive approach to competing, and the competitive advantages on which it will be based. There are two different levels: corporate strategy, which is the strategy for the business overall (the portfolio of businesses); and business strategy, which determines how each business will compete. Business strategy is a high …

The differences between business, sales, and marketing strategies Read Post »

What are the biggest sales issues & opportunities for CEOs & Sales Leaders today?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Sales Benchmarking, Sales Consulting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Strategy

Since late 2014, we have been rolling out the Sales Strategy & Operations Audit working with a wide range of businesses across industries in the public, private, and N4P sectors to help them sell better.

In 2017, we compiled the Barrett Sales Strategy & Operations Benchmark Report for 2015-2017 based on over 20 companies and found several trends emerging that are relevant across businesses and industries. We are also seeing this across many other businesses with or without the audit.

Here is what we found:

The biggest sales issues facing CEOs & Sales Leaders today:

  • Average or below average: Every business …

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    What does Selling Better mean to sales team’s retention rates?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Essentials, Sales Process Maps, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Uncategorized

    What do you make of this statistic?

    The average tenure of a sales representative across Europe and USA is currently 15 months.

    Ouch!

    There are other stats that also show the average staff turnover can be anything around 25-50% per annum, or more in some cases.  Some call centres experience turnover rates of over 70% per annum.

    These statistics are alarming because the costs associated with poor engagement and high staff turnover are monumental and can manifest in many ways including decline in sales, poor customer service, loss of reputation leading to more loss of customers and employees, and impaired recruitment. If not addressed, …

    What does Selling Better mean to sales team’s retention rates? Read Post »

    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 …

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

    Are your sales conferences pumping or slumping?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Blog, Brand & Reputation, Collaboration, Communication, Sales Conference, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Teamwork

    *** Trigger Warning: May contain traces of sarcasm ***

    We’ve all been there: a sea of people, pulled together from across the country or region, locked in a windowless room with artificial light, seated at round tables with mints and water, patiently waiting for the parade of presenters to finish their ‘Death by PowerPoint’ presentations so we can get to the coffee station during the day and then the bar at night to start really engaging with our colleagues. During the day some relief can be found in the smartphones that everyone will be less and less discreetly looking at repeatedly, …

    Are your sales conferences pumping or slumping? Read Post »

    Sales Trend 2 – The case for long-term focus

    By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy, Success, Sustainability & Environment, Vision, Mission & Purpose

    Sales Trend 2 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2018 Report is the case for long-term focus and strategy.

    It’s no news that most businesses are focused on the short-term, living from quarter to quarter, and that although there’s ongoing argument about whether there’s enough evidence or not to say that long-term businesses perform better, most of the arguments against it (pro short-term) focus only on profits.

    However, this sales trend reports that there are increasingly louder calls for businesses to be more long-term focused in their planning and strategies. The power of long term planning can be found in …

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    I’m really frustrated because we could all achieve magnificent sales results if only…

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Training

    I am, by nature, a realist optimist who looks at what we can do, how we can make things better and so on. But I don’t do things on a whim, my team and I study what is best practice and look to design, build and weave the various ingredients together to create cost effective, human-centred, strategy and process driven transformation frameworks and journeys that deliver magnificent results and highly capable people when it to comes to selling better.

    So effective – cost wise and results wise – that it becomes a no-brainer.

    Yet, too many business and sales leaders opt for …

    I’m really frustrated because we could all achieve magnificent sales results if only… Read Post »

    Don’t die wondering, the real secret to sales success – Part I of II: the business

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Innovation, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Sales Process Maps, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Strategy, Success

    I know, I know, I know.

    How many times have we seen the ‘Secrets to Sales Success’ plastered over the internet only to be left disappointed?

    Usually, these ‘secrets’, once you look into them, either leave you feeling duped because of the unethical biases they take, or you are left with lots of little bits and pieces of advice that are ok but they are not coordinated in a manner that you can manage and move forward with them.

    Like the diet and wellness industries, you could spend a lifetime trying to work out what you should do to improve your chances at …

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    2017 Sales Trend 7 – Sell and Deliver Value or Commoditise

    By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Business Acumen, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Trends

    With business becoming much more complex and value harder to discern in product sales alone, Sales Trend 7, Sell and Deliver Value or Commoditise, sees business leaders making serious decisions about how to do business. In essence, they have two choices in terms of the way to run legitimate operations:

  • Run a business that sells unique solutions or customised products/services and generates reasonable margins and delivers real value beyond product. This means stepping up their game, building out their sales team’s business acumen and solution selling capabilities so as to stay relevant to their clients, add real business value and ROI, …

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