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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The difference between Cheap & Frugal Customers & how to deal with them

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Skills, Sales Tips

Today, many clients whether they are B2B (business) or B2C (consumer) are looking to save money. Why? Times are uncertain, markets and demographics are shifting, there is a wide variety of choice, and it’s much easier for buyers to make product comparisons and compare prices. It is said that we are currently under the influence of a buyer’s market, and some buyers can and do drive a hard bargain.

At the same time, businesses are seeing their margins eroding so they’re putting more pressure on their salespeople to hold their margins and deliver value. That’s not always easy, especially if we …

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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 …

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

Why everybody benefits from knowing when to say ‘NO’

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Life Skills, Sales Tips, Self Development

Seth Godin is a master at providing pithy, sage advice and I couldn’t go past a recent post of his that really spells out the importance of knowing when to say NO.

His article made me recall an earlier article I wrote back on 2007 called ‘Learn to say NO’ which focused on standing up for your value and pricing and not being intimidated by bully buyers.

All of this coincided with an article in The Age newspaper this week about ‘The customer can be wrong’ highlighting the issue of employee safety around sexual harassment of staff by customers.

What’s happening …

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How to sell better in uncertain times

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips

You could be forgiven for starting off 2016 in a rather pessimistic manner given all the ‘doom and gloom’ being spread about economic growth issues, the decline of share markets across the globe and talk of another GFC. Don’t get me wrong, we need to be vigilant and able to adapt and, even if everything that is being predicted turns out to be true, we still need to keep moving forward and seek out the right opportunities to focus on.

In short, how do we keep our head when everyone else around us is losing theirs?

There are those of us who …

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How to find your competitive edge and compete successfully

By / / Business Acumen, Competition, Education in Sales, Sales Tips

Product differentiation is getting harder, Me2 products are flooding the markets, quality is being commoditised, and as a result margins are being squeezed and value is at risk of being shed if we don’t know how to articulate the real value we deliver beyond product and price and demonstrate our competitive edge.

With so much choice and competitors fighting for our clients’ attention, it is critical that we find and define our competitive edge.

How do we define our competitive edge?

That depends on what we want to deliver to our customers and how we want to run our businesses.

Today, …

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Why using Sales Intelligence helps you close more sales

By / / CRM, Sales Results, Sales Tips

Whilst many salespeople complain of their frustrations with getting an initial appointment with new prospects, it’s the next step – converting these initial buyer-seller conversations into a presentation opportunity – that should be more of a concern. Research from CSO Insights shows an alarming erosion in the ability to move a sale from an initial conversation with around only 48% of these being converted. This is down from a high of around 58%.

The study on sales intelligence by CSO says the reason companies are struggling to move prospects past initial conversations is that today’s ultra-informed buyers want …

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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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First Aid Kit for a Sales Recovery

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Call Reluctance, Education in Sales, Prospecting, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips

Many of us have been there and some of us are yet to experience the gut wrenching experience when we finally, consciously realise that our sales pipeline and revenue numbers are in drastic decline and we are in deep, deep trouble. We realise all too dramatically that we are having the business and sales equivalent of a heart attack.

The brutal facts finally hit us hard in our face, our chest, our guts and we realise we may not survive.

Yet, the causes and signs were there for us all to see. Like a heart attack, a combination of activities caused this …

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