Politics and Sales
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Biased Polls and Poor Sales Questions: 83% of Salespeople Fail at This
- January 29, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Sales Assessments Compared, Understanding the Sales Force
New OMG data reveals only 17% of salespeople are strong in Consultative Selling—especially at asking great, tough questions. See how biased poll questions mirror weak sales probes, and why specific competitor-weakness questions win more deals. Percentile breakdowns + fixes inside.
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Unify Your Sales Message: Lessons from Politics and Balance of Nature
- September 2, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Democrats flood the airwaves with one message, like their cringy 2025 Trump/Musk attack videos, while Republicans’ scattered talking points barely register. Sound like your sales team? Most operate like the GOP—95% of companies lack consistent messaging, per Objective Management Group data. Take Balance of Nature’s “fruits and veggies in a capsule” campaign: real customers, from moms to celebs, passionately amplify one message, driving huge growth. Imagine your salespeople delivering your value prop with that fire! At Kurlan & Associates, we analyze elevator pitches and value propositions to ensure consistency and impact. Sales leaders, review your messaging, make sure your team knows it cold, and enforce it like CRM compliance. Need help crafting a unified, authentic pitch? Read the full post for tips to make your sales messaging win.
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Official Guidance for Sales Teams Navigating the 2nd Trump Economy
- January 20, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s discuss how the Trump economy will affect sales organizations.
It will be easier to schedule meetings – hooray!
It may be easier to reach decision makers – that’s awesome! They hide when they aren’t interested in spending.
Sales cycles will be shorter – that’s great news!
But with all that good news, I do have five warnings to share:
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How to Prepare for the Big Sales Presentation
- June 24, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
The goal of the big presentation, as with the debate, is to differentiate, but that requires knowing your competition’s strengths and weaknesses and being able to point out those where you are superior. Assuming that your price will be higher, you must represent its value and it must be that value that stands out above and beyond everything else. How can you be the value?
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Trump, The Iowa Caucus, and Sales Improvement
- January 16, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
This course is the most fun you could ever have while going through sales training! But it is so much more than fun and entertainment. There are powerful selling lessons in each clip, and despite the fun, you will become more effective at all aspects of selling. It doesn’t matter how long you have been in sales, what you sell, who you sell it to, the length of your sales cycle or the cost of your product or service. Nor does it matter where your competency gaps are.
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How to Sell to Major Accounts That Love Your Competitor
- October 23, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Salespeople tend to take their best accounts for granted. They don’t call as often as they should. They don’t visit as often as they could. You need to be there and/or on the phone with them more often than the salesperson they like so much. Something is bound to go wrong. Something is likely to disappoint your prospect. That’s your opportunity to change the conversation.
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Sales Presentations to Big Companies – the Same as Political Theater
- September 22, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
What really happens on presentation day? Theater. Salespeople validate what the individuals on the committee already believe to be true. If you’re not the one getting the business, nothing you do on that day will change that UNLESS the one who is getting the business screws up big time.
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Senate Confirmation Hearings Shows Us What Salespeople Do Wrong Every Day
- October 12, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Oh no, another post on the political climate. Don’t worry, I’m not taking sides, I’ll be right down the middle, and very critical of both sides. And stay with me for the pivot to the good stuff – my sales analysis. Here goes!
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3 Selling Characteristics for the Age of Covid, Politics and Recession
- September 8, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Thanks to the non-stop political news cycle, I went from averaging just over one article that mentioned politics per year to two!
This article will be different. For the first time in fourteen years of blogging, I am going to share what I think, uncensored, and despite some concern for what you think, not quite enough concern to stop me from writing about it. There will still be a sales tie-in so stay with me as I build the case for 3 powerful sales characteristics.
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FOX News and CNN Can Help You Conduct Better Sales Opportunity Reviews
- August 17, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
I don’t really care whether or not you like, approve of, tolerate, or agree with President Trump and/or the issues he stands for. Doesn’t matter to me. And you shouldn’t care what I think of him or which side of that invisible center line I am on. Shouldn’t matter to you. While this is an article about coaching salespeople, I am going to use the current divisiveness as an analogy to help you better understand how sales leaders can have a huge impact on your salespeople.
