The Noble Profession of Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Self Development, Selling Better, Success

The statement ‘The noble profession of Selling’ may sit well with some. While many others would find ways to say everything to the contrary, bringing up stories about how they or others were ripped off by shonky salespeople. I mean why is it that when someone’s deceived by someone else they say ‘they’ve done a sales job on them’? There’s nothing noble about that, you’d agree.

In a world where it’s too easy to engage and influence people with catchy slogans and memes that can propagate negative stereotypes, fear of the other, division, misinformation and myths, and keep people ignorant or …

The Noble Profession of Selling Read Post »

Crowdsourcing Sales Forecasting to deliver better certainty

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Forecasting, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Forecasting, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Selling Better, Success

People love certainty, especially when it comes to business. Which is why sales forecasting and sales pipeline management can often be the bane of sales leaders and their sales teams’ lives with senior management constantly on their backs wanting to know what deals will land and when, and when the revenue will start to come in. It’s relentless.

So given the current state of the world and the climate of uncertainty, it’s a good time to look at some of the latest thinking and work being done to improve the certainty of sales forecasting and pipeline management.

Current Situation with Sales Forecasting

Tracking …

Crowdsourcing Sales Forecasting to deliver better certainty Read Post »

Celebrating 25 years of Helping People & Businesses Sell Better

By / / Education in Sales, Entrepreneurship, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Training, Selling Better

The 9th January, 2020 marks 25 years in business for Barrett.

25 years of helping people and businesses sell better.

25 years of exploration, research, experimentation, creation, building, encouragement and promotion of, and learning and education in ethical human centred sales systems, strategies, processes and practices.

25 years of a self-funded research project focused on creating The Selling Better Movement with the hope it will help people understand that there’s a better way of doing business.

A way in which we can all be prosperous.

I started the business out of my home office with $3,000 in capital on 9 January, 1995 with an idea …

Celebrating 25 years of Helping People & Businesses Sell Better Read Post »

Selling Better, Faster – Total Sales Team Turnaround

By / / Case study, Optimism, Sales Benchmarking, Sales Consulting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales performance, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, sales-process-map, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Systems Thinking

I’m feeling elated and vindicated yet again.

I’m feeling very optimistic about the future of sales systems and sales stewardship.

Two weeks ago I sat down with a very large key B2B client of ours to do a two year retrospective on their Selling Better Project. Considering where we started with this Executive General Manager  discussing his major issues, concerns, ideas and opportunities around their lack of sales strategy, sales operational framework and sales processes, the lack of stewardship and coordinated discipline within the national sales team, the turnaround and results have been thrilling on many levels:

  • Sales are up 8% and steadily …

Selling Better, Faster – Total Sales Team Turnaround Read Post »

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 …

Selling Better, Faster using Real Time Sales Education Read Post »

Want a viable future? Opportunities abound in the Common Good

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Case study, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Optimism, Selling Better, Sustainability & Environment

What type of board member, CEO or sales leader are you?

  • Are you stuck in the day-to-day looking to meet your monthly and quarterly targets, looking to maximise profit, shareholder return and your bonuses?
    OR
  • Are you looking into the future to see what lies ahead ensuring there is a viable sustainable path for all to follow and participate in?

    • In today’s world everything is up for grabs.

    Old institutions are crashing and dying because they held onto the past and failed to adapt.

    Take Thomas Cook Travel as a current case in point. While their leaders were bathing themselves in 29M pounds of bonuses, …

    Want a viable future? Opportunities abound in the Common Good Read Post »

    How prepared is ‘The Lucky Country’ for tough times?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Opportunity, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Strategy, Success, Uncategorized

    Ah the good times…

    Ah 28 years of uninterrupted growth…

    Ah Australia, ‘The Lucky Country’*…

    Ah ‘How good is Australia?’…

    Pssst. But don’t talk about the R** word…

    We are indeed fortunate in Australia to have access to many resources, space, and talented people; however, our luck maybe running out if we carry on drinking the ‘recession avoidance’ Kool Aid, carry on with our old ways of managing business and thinking everything is rosy instead of adapting to the array of changes, challenges, and opportunities that are out there in the market place.

    Which is why I couldn’t go past economist Jim Stanford’s comments in Paddy …

    How prepared is ‘The Lucky Country’ for tough times? Read Post »

    Debunking myths for the Common Good

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Common Ground, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Gratitude, Resilience, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Success, Sustainability & Environment

    If you had to put a percentage weighting on the following questions what would your answers look like?

  • How much of your individual success so far is solely down to your own efforts?
  • How much of your individual success so far is as a result of the success of your community – where you were born, what family you were raised in, what school you went to, networks, friends, government support, infrastructure and the era in which you live?

    • It’s probably impossible to give definitive answers to these questions; however, I suspect, like me, you are aware that much of our individual success …

    Debunking myths for the Common Good Read Post »

    The Sales Juggling Act: how to keep your eye on the sales prize

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better

    Sales is integral to business. Without sales we don’t have a business.

    But running a sales operation, leading the sales effort and guiding and directing a sales team can be a constant juggling act. Sales operations have many moving parts and they all require constant vigilance and effective decision making. The execution risk is always high.

    Sales operations and teams are also fragile ecosystems. Set up well to perform to a standard, they require constant hands-on leadership and stewardship; it’s like keeping a set of spinning plates spinning. Take your eyes off those sales plates for a second and everything can come …

    The Sales Juggling Act: how to keep your eye on the sales prize Read Post »

    Avoiding a Kodak Moment: A positive Case Study on managing change for better sales & business

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Case study, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Selling Better, Success

    A positive Case Study on managing change, pain and quick wins in line with a Long Term Strategy

    Human beings, by and large, are notorious for staying with what is familiar to them and not wanting to ‘rock the boat’, instead chasing the familiar quick fix, the easy option, that which feels safe and comfortable.

    ‘Why not get as much out of today as I can and to hell with the future’. Boom and bust mentality.

    ‘We’ve always done it this way, no need to change’. Staying in our comfort zone mentality.

    ‘If it’s not broken, why fix it?’ Not keeping an open mind …

    Avoiding a Kodak Moment: A positive Case Study on managing change for better sales & business Read Post »

    Scroll to Top