Analogies
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Why There is No Value When You Provide Value Via Special Pricing
- September 29, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
I was discussing the OMG Partnership opportunity with a gentlemen from Hong Kong, who objected to our reasonable licensing fees, refusing to pay any fees to a US company. This is when the conversation began to resemble a sales call. He did what a lot of buyers do to salespeople and began to boast about how well-positioned his company is to market OMG in Hong Kong and what a huge opportunity this would be for OMG. He expected me to waive the fees in exchange for the great opportunity he described.
Most salespeople – 74% to be exact – not wishing to jeopardize a great opportunity, start negotiating or worse, agreeing, to the unrealistic requests. There are ripple effects to this, for example:
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Are Salespeople Also Joggers?
- September 26, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
As I drove to work today, I passed 4 joggers, all with different styles, paces and appearances. As usual, I saw the similarities between what I observed and the sales profession.
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After Inbound 14 – Anatomy of a Hybrid Sales & Marketing Role
- September 22, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
When speaking on the Inbound Stage at Inbound14, my topic was Hiring for the Inbound Sales Role. I asked the question, “Is this a sales or a marketing role?”
The audience desperately wanted this to be a hybrid – someone who could do both the marketing and the sales. Unfortunately, a hybrid role it is not.
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Sales Efficiency – Has Google Provided Us With the Golden Egg?
- September 10, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
It’s 6 AM and we need to plan our day. Oh boy.
There are 87 emails that came in since 6PM yesterday, 2 internal meetings, 3 external meetings, 5 phone meetings and 14 items on the to-do list that must be completed today, including proposals, follow ups, job offers and CRM updates. Whew!
Does that sound like you and your typical day?
With all of the demands on our time, it’s more important than ever that we become more efficient. Some of that can be accomplished through the use of tools, but as with all automation, if you don’t have a good manual process, the automated process probably won’t help.
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Getting Emotional at Dunkin Donuts, and Over Social Selling
- August 18, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
My sudden inability to comprehend what was taking place is what happens when your mind is elsewhere. It happens to salespeople when they aren’t able to stay in the moment, maintain complete focus on what their prospects are saying, and respond without thinking several moves ahead or, more typically, about what they want to say. It’s a form of being emotional.
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Rejection: Does Selling Cause More Anxiety Than Dating?
- July 29, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Today, the abundance of technology and its place in selling has allowed fear of rejection to become much like it was in the golden days of dating. Salespeople now wonder to themselves, “Will they reply to my email?” Will they text me back?” “Will they accept my LinkedIn invitation?” “Will anyone retweet my tweet?” “Will they like me on Facebook?”
Let’s call it Neorejection.
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Fine Tune Your Sales Force as You Optimize Your Computer
- June 18, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
I deleted about 10,000 sent items from Outlook, repaired the machine’s permissions, restarted the laptop, and it was performing to expectations again. I was excited about what I had accomplished in such a short time!
That process isn’t very different from what executives must do with an underperforming sales force.
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The 10 Keys to Effective Group Sales Presentations
- June 9, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
The only difference between speaking to dozens, hundreds or thousands, and presenting to groups on a sales call, are the number of believers. It’s our job to find a way to get as many people as possible to believe in us, our ideas, our capabilities, our value and the impact we can have on them and their business.
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What the Sales World Can Learn from Marathon Participants
- April 23, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
While some professional runners enter a marathon, more than 30,000 people were simply participating because they could. These participants have full-time jobs, careers and businesses. This is a hobby. Yet their commitment to this hobby should be embarrassing to most salespeople, who don’t put forth anywhere near this level of commitment, effort, time or practice into their own career!
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The Biggest Mistake Executives Make about their Sales Force
- March 18, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
When sales are fine, there is no better time, because there is no pressure or urgency, to evaluate the sales force because it is at that very time that executives don’t know what they don’t know.
