Search Results
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Onboarding and 11 Reasons Why Salespeople are Failing
- May 8, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it comes to sales onboarding, nearly half were not onboarded in their first sales job and 23% more received no sales training relative to how the company’s products/services should be sold. If you were one of those new salespeople, it will come as no surprise but for the rest, and especially those of us who invested in our careers, became students of selling or like me, entered the field of sales development, it’s malpractice practiced at scale by millions of companies. They believe that salespeople should just know what they’re supposed to do and figure it out. How hard can it be? Ha!
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How to Always Respond Appropriately to Your Prospect
- December 21, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When a salesperson experiences momentary panic, or forgets what to do or how to do it, that call, Zoom, or in-person meeting is over. It could even spell the end of that opportunity. I’ll explain how to Always Respond Appropriately to Your Prospect
Three ingredients influence events like these:
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Movie Contrasts the Best and Worst Salespeople
- November 14, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We watched GameStop: Rise of the Players and despite it being a documentary, found it to be quite entertaining. It was David versus Goliath. It was Amateur versus Professional. It was about an improbable outcome accomplished by people who were unlikely to succeed and even more unlikely to win the big payoff.
While I thought it had a lot in common with selling, the twelve central figures:
Were not professional investors although they did invest in GameStop.
Were not skilled traders although they did conduct some research.
Did not trade as a full-time job or hobby.
Were making decisions based on hunches, not history or science.
Found in each other kindred souls with a shared passion for GameStop.The five statements above suggest that skills, attributes, competencies and capabilities were NOT part of their success so what could this possibly have in common with selling?
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Milestones in the Sales Process are Like the Stones in a Wall
- October 5, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
An ideal sales process has 4 stages, each with anywhere from 4 to 10 milestones that must be met in order to move to the next stage.
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The 10 Avoidable Things That Occur When Salespeople Don’t Talk about Money
- September 27, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The table above uses data from Objective Management Group (OMG), which has assessed close to 2.4 million salespeople. The data shows that 43% of all salespeople are uncomfortable talking about money and while the top 10% have no such problem, 71% of the bottom 10% are too uncomfortable to talk about money. These are the 10 things that happen when salespeople are uncomfortable with the finance-specific milestones of the sales process:
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Three Recent Hurricanes Show the Path to More Effective Selling
- September 18, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A great example of how much more successful salespeople are when they call on Decision Makers came from a salesperson who messaged me last week. Freddy was excited to talk about his recent success and I have changed his name and company names to protect his identity. Freddy wrote:
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Top 15 Categories of Reading to Improve Sales Team Effectiveness
- August 21, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Bookmark this article so that over time, if you want to improve your sales effectiveness, you can read articles from the topics listed below
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Sometimes The Biggest Sales Problems Have the Simplest Solutions
- May 30, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are simple, easy, fast and powerful solutions for sales problems too. See my examples below.
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Top 10 Keys to Determining and Improving Your Ideal Win Rate
- March 7, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
What kind of car should you drive?
Answering that question with anything other than, “It depends,” is irresponsible because there are so many variables. Choosing a car depends on budget, family size, how much stuff you load into your car, the length of your drives, the logo/ego influence, fit and function, ergonomics, appearance, perceived value, reliability, cost to drive it (gas/electric/mileage), and so much more.
If that makes senses, why do companies struggle when I am unable to instantly tell them what their win-rate or closing percentage should be?
There are so many the variables that can influence your sales win-rate and here are my top ten keys to win rates:
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The Challenger Style and its Impact on Sales Selection
- March 1, 2023
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories:
This White Paper responds to this article, which appeared on the Harvard Business Review Blog. The HBR article introduced a new selling style called the Challenger.