Dave Kurlan

The statistics are staggering. In some sectors, fewer than 25% of all salespeople will make quota in 2012. Even best-in-class companies are lucky when fewer than 80% of their salespeople make quota. Are you OK with it when your own salespeople fail to make quota? There are a number of possible reasons for this widespread mediocrity and failure and, depending on the company, some or all of them may apply.

Today, more than ever before, strategic partnerships, both formal and informal, are an important element of conducting business. They exist at all levels, including these 10:

Not too long ago, before the advent of social selling, if a salesperson needed to add new opportunities to the pipeline, there were basically two options:

Make cold calls; or
Call existing customers for referrals and introductions.

The Growing Power of Inside Sales appeared on the Harvard Business Review Blog on July 29. Overall, the article was quite good with valid sources and statistics. On the other hand, it was flawed in that, as usual with articles like this, it cited examples from only large companies (Astra Zeneca, IBM and SAP) leading most readers to come to one of two conclusions:

I don’t write about Inside Sales as often as I should. After all, everyone else is writing about it, some bloggers are devoted to it, and if you read what the inside sales bloggers are writing, you would think that inside sales is king. Of course, it is the king of the top of the funnel where everything begins, but with few exceptions, selling rarely ends in that department.

Yesterday I was in the office, preparing for the formal introduction of Objective Management Group’s (OMG) award-winning, new and improved, fourth generation, Sales Candidate Assessment (view the 25-minute Webinar here) when the phone rang and I answered.

The May issue of Top Sales Magazine is now available and in addition to my monthly article, this month’s issue is loaded with important reading on sales and selling.