What Athletes, Top CEO’s and Pop Stars Have in Common

By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Training, Self Development, Success

Elite athletes, pop stars, top selling writers, politicians, Fortune 100 CEO’s all have one thing in commonthey hire coaches to help them achieve their goals faster and become or maintain their ‘number one’ status. Elite performers see the value their coach brings to their craft. They know their coach will help them gain and create insights that transform their performance. The rest of us can take the same approach. Many salespeople see the value of hiring a sales coach to help maintain an edge internally and over …

What Athletes, Top CEO’s and Pop Stars Have in Common Read Post »

Signs you are at risk of losing your top sales performers

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Talent, Self Development, Success, Wellbeing

There they are every day bringing in the deals. They’re always prospecting, meeting clients, networking, making suggestions about how to do things even better and they never discount unnecessarily. Best of all your clients are happy. They’re happy with your offering, happy with your service, happy with the sales support they get and your business is profitable.

Sounds magnificent doesn’t it? Your top sales performer(s) require(s) very little work. They self manage, are resilient and are such a breeze to work with. They’re low maintenance and are not temperamental like those

Signs you are at risk of losing your top sales performers Read Post »

Like exercise, prospect a little each day and stay sales fit

By / / Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Self Development, Success, Time Management

Prospecting is considered one of the most daunting jobs in selling. Many people in sales or other roles charged with developing new business, especially with new prospects, find the task of prospecting anxiety provoking and tend to put off the prospecting task in favour of more desirable or less frightening tasks. Yet in their desire to escape prospecting they inadvertently set themselves up for greater issues in the future.

Prospecting is the oxygen that fuels the fire of sales. Prospecting involves a series of sequential activities designed to:

  • Identify your prospect
  • Qualify your prospect
  • Prioritise your prospect

Prospecting is therefore a step-by-step process for identifying …

Like exercise, prospect a little each day and stay sales fit Read Post »

Should ‘Selling’ be studied at University?

By / / Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Research, Sales Training, Self Development, Success

Barrett Research invites you to express your opinion about whether ‘Selling’ should be an applied academic degree. Please complete our Graduate Degree for the Sales Profession’ survey and voice your views.

With the profession of Selling becoming increasingly more complex involving many more variables and the shift from product being at the heart of selling to strategic relationships, collaboration, true value, sustainability and transparency now on the agenda we believe it’s time for ‘Selling’ to step out under the shadow of Marketing and MBA’s to have its own degree status. Recently I was invited to …

Should ‘Selling’ be studied at University? Read Post »

What are your relationships built on?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Ethics & Values, Self Development

If you are in business for the long haul then you know the value of building your business relationships on solid foundations. Too many times people have fallen foul of the broken promises and pipe dreams offered by those people whose only intention is to make money at your expense. I can recall a few incidents in my career where I have given people the benefit of the doubt only to be let down and in some very rare incidents, ripped off.

In sales and business we meet people every day and need to be able to size up and make …

What are your relationships built on? Read Post »

Transitioning from the old sales paradigm to the new world of social sales

By / / Communication, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Self Development, Social Media, Social Sales, Strategy

When I began my career as a professional sales person in the early 1980’s we were trained in product and client communication skills focusing on handling objections. We were given business cards, product brochures, a geographic territory of clients to manage and grow, and a car to get around in. We did not have mobile phones, let alone smart phones / tablets, laptops, or CRM’s. There was very little coaching and we were expected to make sales and make it work.

For a while there, let’s say 20+ years, it seemed like business as usual as many companies …

Transitioning from the old sales paradigm to the new world of social sales Read Post »

Different sales assessments and how to use them

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Prospecting, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Assessments, Sales Culture, Sales Research, Sales Training, Self Development

If you wanted to, you could sit down for at least four weeks and complete 100’s of sales assessments and there would still be more on offer. This over abundance of sales assessments can be confusing because they are not all the same. If you do not know what you want to measure it will make looking for an effective sales assessment tool that much harder. Here are some questions that may help you select your sales assessments with more precision.

  • Why will this person sell? (Motives, Ambition, Goals)
  • Will this person sell? (Attitudes, Mindset, Not …

Different sales assessments and how to use them Read Post »

Five reasons to ‘Mind Your Emotions’®

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Self Development, Wellbeing

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’.”

This quote more often than not reflects my life as an entrepreneur, business woman, sales person, mother, partner and friend. On those days and nights when I feel overwhelmed and sometimes exhausted by all my responsibilities and commitments that little voice reminding me to ‘try again tomorrow’ keeps me focused on why I am doing what I am doing – it helps me to continue to cultivate my resilience, to continue to put one foot in front of the …

Five reasons to ‘Mind Your Emotions’® Read Post »

More lessons from MasterChef – Can you take the heat?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Performance Management, Sales Skills, Self Development, Success

As the saying goes, “If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen”. Once again MasterChef has served up some great life lessons. Last year I wrote about the great leadership, coaching and mentoring we can learn from MasterChef. Again Garry, George, Matt and the other guest chefs showed us how to excel in this area of leadership.

On this occasion, I want to comment on ‘Resilience’ and dealing with setbacks and challenges, and how MasterChef gave us a window into how people handle stress and demanding situations. The time pressures and …

More lessons from MasterChef – Can you take the heat? Read Post »

Is internal competition eating away at your sales results?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Talent, Self Development, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Value Proposition & Value Add

Many sales cultures are traditionally based on respect for authority, status and success, and encouraging competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented atmospheres. Although this is not true for all businesses, especially in the 21st Century! There are a growing number of businesses adopting more collegiate, lead team approaches. However, despite different types of cultures, sales performance and results are usually derived from the efforts of individuals. Harnessing those individual efforts to achieve synergy (the sum is greater than its individual parts) is a key task of management, yet so many get it wrong. Let’s take a look …

Is internal competition eating away at your sales results? Read Post »

Scroll to Top