Baseball and Sales
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Why MEDDIC’s Missing Order Costs You Deals
- October 19, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
MEDDIC gives you useful checkpoints, but without shared definitions and a forced sequence the checkboxes produce bad pipeline and forecast data. Baseline Selling requires the milestones in order so each stage makes the next one possible.
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Why Disappointed Prospects Don’t Switch to Your Company
- October 8, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
A prospect can spend the meeting building your case and still give the incumbent one more chance. Four questions tell you which buyers are loyal to the letter, which ones keep score, and which deals to stop forecasting.
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The Biblical Sales Force, Part 9: Why Agreeable Salespeople Are Not Coachable
- October 2, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Bible and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Agreeable salespeople make coaching feel successful. Coachable salespeople change their mind and do the work. Matthew 21:28-32 shows the difference, and most sales managers are grading the wrong son.
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Playing Dumb Is a Dumb Sales Strategy — Until You Know When to Stop
- September 24, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Salespeople love to talk about playing dumb. They don’t know when to stop, and they don’t know how to do it so it shows expertise. Pedro didn’t throw the changeup until the fastball was established. That’s the skill.
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Data and Context Predict How Your Next Sales Hire Will Perform
- September 17, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Baseball and Sales, Sales Assessments Compared, Understanding the Sales Force
Carter Jensen and Jarren Duran put up similar power numbers this year. One is having a great season. One isn’t. The difference is context — and it’s the same mistake sales leaders make when they hire the likable account manager for a hunting role.
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Why Sales Managers Don’t Coach: Two Out of 500 Said Yes
- September 14, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
We took away the time excuse, the listening excuse, and the cost excuse. Sales leaders at about 500 companies still wouldn’t coach. Two said yes. That’s a quarter of one percent.
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Inbound Ruined Outbound — But It’s Not Too Late to Join the Evolution
- September 4, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Dave Origins, Understanding the Sales Force
Phones evolved. TVs evolved. Selling got inbound, tools, and a buyer-journey myth — and most salespeople used all three as a hall pass to skip the conversation. Only 17% can still do the thing that works.
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How Prospects Use EMCOM to Push Away Salespeople
- August 17, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Prospects with real urgency often go radio silent — just like a warship running EMCOM — to keep salespeople from discovering the problem that would actually make them buy. Here’s why that resistance exists and how the best salespeople manage it.
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Why Salespeople Prescribe Before They Diagnose (And Kill Their Win Rates)
- August 11, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Most salespeople jump straight to the demo. A real consultative approach looks more like a thorough doctor’s exam than a product pitch — and the difference shows up clearly in win rates.
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The Sales Process Scramble
- August 3, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Skipping just one step in the sales process can turn a sure thing into a rubbery mess. Here’s why it happens and how a real process destroys the hope that keeps weak opportunities alive.
