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Selling – We’re Going Back to AIDA And You Should Be Scared
- October 25, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While the tools have changed, information is available in the blink of a click, and leads are in huge supply, people, at their core, have not changed the way they buy.
Sure, they may be meeting with or speaking with salespeople later in their buying process. Sure, they may take longer to make decisions. Sure, they may be more diligent about spending their money. But the one thing that has not changed is that they still have some motivation – some compelling reason – to spend their money and spend it with you instead of someone else.
The rush to embrace inbound marketing comes with a false sense of security and a poorly grounded belief that the sale is somehow easier, faster and more demo-centric today.
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The Challenge of the Challenger Sales Model – The Facts
- October 21, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If we are discussing a transactional sale, then he is completely correct. Let the customer just buy what they want to buy and don’t complicate it. But most of us in the sales consulting space don’t consult to companies with a transactional sale – that’s marketing’s job to get more people to buy!
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Now That You Have a Sales Process, Never Mind
- October 16, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Here’s the premise: Companies that have been rigorously enforcing sales process should stop doing so because it is resulting in longer sales cycles, decreased conversion rates, unreliable forecasts and depressed margins. So they say. Here are some of the many problems with their premise:
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The Blind Side for Sales
- October 16, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You may remember the book and later the movie, The Blind Side. The football term refers to the offensive tackle that protects the quarterback’s blind (non-throwing) side from defensive linemen who are rushing in hopes of sacking the quarterback.
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The Monumental Effort Required to Grow Sales in 2014
- October 15, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When you look ahead to sales for the next 12 months, are you using the same assumptions as always? If you want to grow by 20%, do you use the same metrics for next year that you used for last year? Will the plan that got you there last year continue to work next year? Have you accounted for any of these changes?
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Science and the Length of Your Sales Cycle
- October 9, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A really important factor is exactly what salespeople actually believe – what they think – relative to the sales cycle. Read some of the beliefs that this sales force had around the sales cycle:
Those two factors alone are enough to double the length of a sales cycle! There are still 9 more factors that have an impact; however, just from what we’ve discussed and reviewed so far, it’s obvious that this company’s sales cycle is M-U-C-H longer than it needs to be.
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Why CEOs/Presidents Tolerate Ineffective Sales Management
- October 7, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Lack of overall sales performance is an easily recognized problem. A savvy President or CEO may correctly identify the symptoms: inaccurate forecasts, a lack of new opportunities, new salespeople failing to ramp-up quickly enough, delayed closings, and complacency. However, they usually fail to understand that these issues are not sales issues, but sales management issues.
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Validation of the Validation of the Sales Assessment
- October 4, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the companies that insisted on validating our validation is moving forward with a license to hire 200 salespeople using our Sales Candidate Assessment. I’ll share the results of their own validation:
They conducted a 7-day pilot and hired 23 salespeople.
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Presidents & CEO’s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective!
- October 2, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A title like, “Presidents & CEO’s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective”, will cause some Sales Directors, Sales VP’s and Sales Managers to click and read the article. That’s OK, but a spoiler warning: if you feel threatened by hearing the truth about yourself or your sales team, or would be uncomfortable sharing the truth about you or your team with the President or CEO, you should probably exit this article right now.
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The Real Problem with the Sales Profession and Sales Leadership
- October 1, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In the context of best practices, the sales management role is now 50% coaching. The problem is that according to data from Objective Management Group, 82% of sales managers make very ineffective coaches. Just yesterday alone we had conversations with sales managers who: