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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Is an Organic Growth Strategy a better way to go?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Entrepreneurship, Performance Management, Sales Results, Strategy, Success

How do I grow my business?

How do I get a better ROI?

How do I get more profitable sales?

How do I attract and convert more customer?

These are some of questions entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs and sales leaders ask on daily basis. And rightly so. We need to ask questions of ourselves and how we run our businesses so as to be appraised of the better ideas that serve our goals and ambitions.

To keep me fresh, I like to read widely and most recently, while sitting on a plane to Sydney, I came across a very interesting McKinsey article about the various …

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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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Rethinking our economy… How do we sell in a Circular Economy with Doughnut Economics?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Environment & Sustainability, Ethics & Values, Innovation, Strategy, Sustainability & Environment, Wellbeing

Go out on a limb

It’s hard not to notice that we all have quite a bit on our agendas; lots of things competing for our time and attention; too many things that are likely to leave us feeling overwhelmed, overloaded and often confused.

People are asking lots of questions, e.g.:  Which way to turn? Which way to look? What to do? What is right? What is wrong? Who should we believe? Where do we go?

But, as we always say ‘It all starts with OPPORTUNITY’. So I invite you to go out on a limb with this article. I need you to …

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Why Sales is still the elephant in the room

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Strategy

Have you noticed that nearly everyone you meet from CEOs and leaders to professionals services firms, not-for-profits and universities, to the people in the street want to do anything but actually sell and talk about sales?

Many of them will tell you that they want to grow their businesses, deliver better revenue and profits, drive better customer experiences, be taken more seriously by their clients, build better relationships, attract more customers, etc.

To achieve these things they will tell you they are trying out some special apps, social media strategies, CRM systems, developing their leadership styles, EQ assessments, agile work environments, flexible …

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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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    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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    2015 Sales Trends Event – How to sell better in a complex world

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Sales Leadership, Sales Trends, Strategy, Success

    On Wednesday 6 May we hosted our 2015 Barrett 12 Sales Trends Annual Business Breakfast where many senior business and sales leaders came to hear about and discuss the theme for the event this year, ‘Transparency and the Middle Path’ – How to sell better in a complex world. It was great to see the room filled to capacity again as it was for the inaugural event last year.

    It also gave us the opportunity to formally celebrate our 20th year in business and thank the Barrett team and our clients and supporters, many of whom were there …

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