Barry Trailer
Barry Trailer
Barry has been involved in complex B2B sales for over 30 years and is intrigued with how it's changed/changing and what this means to Sales as a Profession (SaaP). Salesware, the analytics company he co-founded, was acquired by Goldmine Software in 2000 and his next company, CSO Insights with Jim Dickie, was acquired by Miller Heiman Group in 2015. He has twice been published by, and been a keynote for, Harvard Business Review, and is author of Sales Mastery, a novel.
Selling to Named Accounts: A Working Definition of High, Wide, and Deep
In a recent business review meeting, a client talked about his desire to go "high, wide and deep" with one of his named accounts. Sounds...
How to Make “Relationship Selling” Effective with Today’s Empowered Buyers
"Relationship Selling" is a term that has been bandied about for decades and means, as is so often the case with sales terms, different...
Sales School 2.0
Many people know I have a sales training background, but few know how I started in training. I'd recently left a 10-year civil engineering...
First Line Sales Managers are the Fulcrum for Improved Performance, No Matter What “Lever” You Choose
“If I Had a Lever Long Enough…” — Archimedes A question that often comes up from sales leaders during workshops or advisory services is: “What’s...
B2B Buyer Preferences Study: How Effective Are Sales Reps in a Virtual Environment?
The more things change … My last column talked about the many changes wrought by Covid, primarily from in-person to virtual sales calls, and the...
The Rise of Virtual Selling and Implications for Sales Enablement
Nobody needs to be told what a strange, challenging, and difficult year 2020 turned out to be. At the start of a new decade,...
A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?
The room (and the online meetings) always become very quiet when we ask this question. Everyone knows the value of coaching, whether they’ve consciously...
Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion
My articles earlier this year addressed equality and fairness but, admittedly, these were aimed mostly at gender neutrality. Since the death of George Floyd...
Until the Sun Shines Again, Stay Close to Your Customers and Do Right by Your Sales Reps
Clearly, these are unprecedented times with broad-scale statewide stay-at-home orders, and economic shutdowns across all non-essential businesses. Ten weeks after the first San Francisco...
Building a Sales Culture of Respect and Fairness: Gender Neutrality is Trickier than Expected
My earlier article on this topic looked at specific actions individuals and managers could take to ensure a level playing field for both men...
Disband the Sales “Boys Club” — 3 Ways to Improve Equality, Parity, and a Level Playing Field
MedReps, a Jackson Healthcare company, specializing in staffing for the medical industry, recently released a study of 750 sales reps with the provocative title,...
How the New AI — Authentic Intelligence — Can Improve Sales Productivity
During the past two years, Sales Mastery, Inc. (SMI) has been studying and cataloging the various artificial intelligence (AI) applications aimed at increasing sales...
Building a Career in Sales: Hacks vs. Honing Skills for the Long Haul
"Sales hack" refers to any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in pursuit of a sale (or sales career)...
Why Now is the Perfect Time to be a Sales Professional… Even for Millennials
In the previous column, I introduced the notion of Sales as a Profession (SaaP) and some of the steps that have been cataloged toward...
Sales as a Profession: Perceptions, Misconceptions, and the Way Forward
You’ve been in sales for several years, are a solid performer, and considered to be a real pro. You’re happy with your employer, confident...
Seller’s Challenge: Financial, Spiritual and Social
The Happy New Year is now a month old and, if you can believe the New York Times, most resolutions are abandoned by January...
Seller’s Challenge: Focus on Physical Segment
Moving toward the halfway mark on the 6-month journey to “Balance my Wheel,” and put some teeth into the effort by publicly declaring objectives....
A Progress Report on My Seller’s Challenge
Having outlined my intention to “Balance my Wheel,” starting with my Professional segment, last month I declared I would limit my work week to...
Good Intentions Are Not Enough: My Improvement Plan as a Sales Professional
Last month was the kickoff of the Seller’s Challenge to commit to doing things that work on a continuing basis, not just part-time, not...
The First Step Towards Sales Mastery: A Public Commitment
Decades ago when I was teaching Miller Heiman programs, I was asked back a year later to...