How Retail Discount Advertising negatively impacts B2B Sales – Part II

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

How to shift the conversation from Price to Value

In last week’s post we talked about how –given that every business executive is a consumer, and the amount of discount sales in the retail sector- the expectation of ‘better price’ is impacting B2B sales.

We concluded that a more pragmatic approach is needed, based on value rather than absolute price.

This is the point we need to understand as sales people and business leaders: the client does not really see a price, they see and are looking for value.  So our real mission as sales people is to find out what …

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2017 Sales Trend 4 – Learn to Embrace and Manage Complexity

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Sales Trends

Sales Trend 4 from our 12 Sales Trends for 2017 report explains why to have extraordinary sales teams and operations, we have to embrace complexity.

As John Lord[1] said “Perhaps a greater understanding of what I am saying might be obtained by exercising a greater willingness to think more deeply”. 

Regrettably, most organisations ONLY view their sales operations as tactical linear functions of the value chain—and while sales teams need to get up close and personal on a tactical level with customers, if sales is only viewed through the overly simplistic lens of “foot soldiers selling products” then …

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The difference between Sales and Marketing Segmentation

By / / Marketing, Sales Market Segmentation, Sales Strategy

To segment or not to segment that is the question.

For too long sales has allowed marketing to dictate what a segment should be. But the simple reality is that sales segmentation and marketing segmentation are substantially different. In fact, it is these very differences that make sales strategy so different from marketing and even corporate strategies.

Marketing defines segments as “A group of people that share one or more demographic and / or psychographic characteristics”.

However, sales people deal with people, not groups.

Traditional segmentation usually takes into account how attractive a segment is to a company, and how competitive …

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Selling Better Case Study: How to do it properly

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Sales Strategy

A Barrett Selling Better Case Study

Here is a brief snap shot of the current results of a major Selling Better project we started with one of our clients in 2015: 60 salespeople plus managers in a mid-tier speciality banking and finance company, Australia.

  • 130% of sales budget year to date
  • Sales pipeline confirmed business out to 24 weeks versus previous 14 week benchmark
  • Sales team realignment to match higher value customer market opportunities
  • Sales team finding and winning larger, more profitable sales with better quality clients
  • Customer retention (of the right kind of customers) at 100%
  • The CVP (customer value proposition) has been adopted across the …

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HOPE is not a Sales Strategy

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Strategy, Strategy

Whilst hope isn’t a sales strategy, without the right ingredients failure is certain

The protocol for developing a sales strategy is fundamentally different to that used for other business strategies. Even the thinking that drives a sales strategy is somewhat different to that which drives marketing strategies. Here are a few guidelines:

  • The golden rule that underpins any sales strategy is knowledge. By learning as much as one can about the market, buyers and the alternatives buyers have, sales is able to expand its own thinking beyond its present paradigm, in the process defining a clearer, more focused role in …

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    Solution versus Product Selling

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Solution Selling

    Today it is almost impossible to meet a product salesperson in the business-to-business sector. Everyone sells ‘solutions’ hoping they can charge a premium or perform some miracle that will instantly differentiate them from their competitors.

    And management – often ignorant of the subtle differences between selling products or services and selling solutions – become frustrated when they find that the expected boom in sales doesn’t materialise; that their salespeople continue to face pressure for lower prices, better service delivery and a wider range of offerings.

    The challenge is understanding what selling a solution requires. The real starting point, for a truly solutions …

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    Are customer surveys useless?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Customer Service, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy

    There is no doubt that automation saves time and money. It improves efficiencies and very often eliminates human error. But what happens to companies when they try to automate all of their customer interactions in an attempt to cut costs and yet still give the appearance of caring? In other words, what bad business decision-making drives otherwise well meaning, customer-centric companies to send out post service customer service questionnaires and then fail to act on the feedback they get, or even to acknowledge them?

    Over the past few weeks I had 8 such questionnaires, each asking me to rate the quality …

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    Why we need Progressive Approximation to design an effective sales strategy

    By / / Sales Leadership, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Strategy

    In the world of big data, the abundance of information, complex systems and the need to use good judgement to make sound decisions, many people, often overwhelmed by too many variables, default to single moments of truth, black and white solutions, and the promise of the ‘right’ answer in an attempt to solve the challenges they face.

    It’s understandable that we want simple answers. Our brains love ‘simple’ because it is energy efficient and comforting. Once we have ‘the answer’ we don’t have to think, we can just do.

    Looking for ‘simple’ in business is at best lazy and, at worst, very …

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    What you need to drive your sales strategy

    By / / Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Culture, Sales Strategy, Strategy

    The frequently used business model of having sales under marketing, and therefore not having a separate sales strategy is no longer effective in today’s complex market place.

    Sales strategies developed by non-sales driven executives tend to be little more than tactical ways to support the marketing drive, brand equity, corporate philosophy and/or the value/volume targets. Most organisations could have survived like this in a product focused 20th century world, but not anymore.

    Today, selling is much more complex than just getting business (new or incremental).

    Sales now has to re-examine its mission. It has to unshackle itself from marketing, …

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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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