- July 13, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Success breeds success.
We begin the week with one of my shorter articles.
Three weeks ago, I wrote that the Red Sox believed that trading Rafael Devers, their best hitter, would make them a better team. Shortly thereafter they started their current 10-game winning streak. Last week I wrote, discussed, ranted and celebrated the 20-year legacy of #BaselineSelling and how one-on-one coaching wins the day. While today’s article has another baseball analogy, it is a tremendous one for achieving greater sales success.
The Baseball Story
As each Red Sox starting pitcher threw a good game, none of the starters wanted to be the one to falter. As each relief pitcher came in to get big outs late in the game, none of the relievers wanted to be the one to blow a game. And as each hitter came up with big hits, like Roman Anthony and Ceddanne Rafaela did, it took the pressure off the rest of the hitters and they came up big too. Just like the Red Sox’s winning streak, sales teams can catch fire when the right dynamics are in place.
The Sales Story
We see the same things happen when my team at Kurlan & Associates trains sales teams and achieve top to bottom success. Everyone expects the salespeople who sell the most to keep doing that. But what happens when suddenly, out of nowhere, the top 20% are no longer producing 80% of the revenue? What happens when one by one, the C players and B players start closing sales they used to lose. When the sales wins start occurring with regularity, none of the salespeople wants to be the one to lose an opportunity, so they run better discovery calls, qualify more thoroughly, and ask better questions. But it’s not just the other 80% upping their game, the top 20% won’t stand for being overtaken on the radar, in revenue, and in pipeline growth. That’s when the top salespeople who didn’t think they needed training, start digging in and embrace the training, ask for coaching, and become even better than they were before.
The Sales Lesson
Good sales training, from a good sales trainer, teaching an actionable sales methodology, a repeatable and predictable sales process, with great, interactive, memorable content, works. Your B players will be the first to succeed, followed by the C players and then your A players. By the time your sales managers master coaching up their salespeople, your revenue will have increased by 28-42% and, in smaller companies, even more. One client, stuck at $24 million for four years, grew to $68 million within 12 months of getting our help. That is a repeatable result.
Let us know if you would like us to work our magic with your team!
Image poorly created by Chat GPT (extra arm holding up the sign)