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What are the biggest sales issues & opportunities for CEOs & Sales Leaders?

Research done by our parent company, Barrett, on Sales Strategy and Operations shows several emerging trends across businesses in the public, private and Not for Profit sectors. Here are some of the findings: The biggest sales issues facing CEOs & Sales Leaders today: No clarity, communication or consistency: regardless of industry, every business lacked clarity of purpose, strategy and roles; had very inconsistent or poor communication practices; and no consistency […]

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Promoting the best salesperson to a sales manager role might not be a good idea.

Have you ever worked with someone who was really effective in one role but then promoted to other roles, usually management, and ended having no idea and no real capacity to fulfil that role in a competent manner? Chances are your answer is ‘yes’. This is a common occurrence in many organisations where people are continually promoted until they are no longer effective in their roles – basically they rise

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Should clients pay for tender and RFP submissions?

In principle, and ideally in practice, yes they should. Why? Because there is a lot of time, effort, money and IP that goes into preparing a tender or RFP (request for proposal). This also includes RFIs (request for information). The companies requesting these tenders, RFPs and RFIs are freely benefiting from the expertise of suppliers if they are requesting highly detailed responses and expecting to pay nothing for this information.

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Ditch short-termism for robust sales strategies

‘If you don’t know where you’re going, every road will lead you nowhere’. This famous quote is usually attributed to the master strategist and politician, Winston Churchill. Sadly, in today’s busy, noisy and complex world, this quote represents a common state of affairs for many organisations’ CEOs, Executive Leaderships Teams, Sales Leaders and their sales teams who are struggling to make sales, retain their relevance with clients, and generate profit.

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The Optimistic Sales Professional

Sales is a demanding profession. Top performers know that to sustain a high level of performance, they need to keep fit and well – both physically and psychologically. And there’s a body of research showing that keeping an optimistic outlook and having the physical energy to meet the demands of working in sales are critical to a salesperson’s effectiveness, success and overall well-being. Something many of us know intuitively, but

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How Retail Discount Advertising negatively impacts B2B Sales

Fact – every business executive is a consumer. Fact – every consumer, certainly here in Australia, is exposed to a barrage of discounting and sales offers from the retail sector. In fact, on any given day, whether on TV, radio, billboard or online, we are bound to be exposed –in our experience- to at least 5-10 “discounting sales” or “discounted special offers” that are being promoted by companies selling everything

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Buyer Behaviours, AI & the Future of Sales Roles

According to Gartner Research, by 2020 85% of interactions between businesses will be executed without human interaction. [i] Automation has already diminished the number of people required for blue collar manufacturing roles; however, with the advent of AI (artificial intelligence), big data and algorithms, we are beginning to see sweeping changes happening across the once untouchable white collar sector, including the very people-oriented roles of sales, as many buyers shift

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Why I want to tell you what to do, but I won’t, even if I know better

We’ve all been there How many times do we want to tell our clients what to do? After only a few sentences uttered by them we, of course, know immediately what their issue is. We’ve seen it 10s or 100s of times before. It seems so obvious to us what they should do. “If only they would just do this… it would be so much better/ save them so much

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How do we sell in a Circular Economy?

What is the Circular Economy? Circular economy is an alternative for the “Take, Make, Consume and Dispose” mindset and business model. It is easiest to imagine first if we look at the living natural world where there is no landfill, no waste: in this biological cycle things live and die and are recycled and repurposed by nature in a circular manner. There is no waste. Unlike the human world where

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Salespeople at Risk of Becoming Obsolete

The proliferation of internet-based sales channels, that offer everything from simple items such as a toothbrush to some fairly complicated services including insurance, banking and even major items in the B2B sector means that the traditional role of product focused salespeople has changed. Sadly, some companies and quite a few salespeople continue to ignore the encroaching tsunami. So just what has changed? The long-time staple of selling (i.e. features and

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