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Selling Styles – How Many Styles Should Your Salespeople Have?
- August 14, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Terrific salespeople make that transition too. They morph from laid-back but confident, to powerful, animated and charismatic when it’s time to present. Most salespeople however, don’t make that transition because it doesn’t feel authentic to them or they fear that they might look and sound like salespeople. Isn’t that sad?
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Developing Top Performers – How to Turn Salespeople into A-Players
- August 13, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The new salespeople whom you hire must be exciting enough and strong enough to lead the way, infusing the sales force with new energy, becoming new role models and causing others to follow their lead or be left behind.
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Why Your Lowest Price Can Be a Barrier to Closing Sales
- August 2, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s not about prices, presentations or building value; it’s about putting prices in the context of what those prices will buy. Compare the two examples above and you’ll see both the answer and the obstacle. The answer is the context.
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Keys to Successful Sales Negotiations
- August 1, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In the United States, Major League Baseball’s trading deadline passed today with some noteworthy moves by teams other than my Boston Red Sox. Aside from my disappointment that the Red Sox failed to make an impact trade to help the team, I recognized something else…
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3 Types of Salespeople – Which are Best at Growing Sales?
- July 30, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The pessimist complains about the prospect. The optimist expects him to buy. The realist adjusts the sales strategy.
Let’s look at these three points a little more closely, shall we?
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The Unusual Case of Arturo – How He Sabotaged His Own Sales
- July 26, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Solving the problem was actually quite easy. I explained to Arturo that his prospects were wondering, “If he doesn’t follow up when he is trying to get the business, what kind of follow-up will I get after he has the business? He doesn’t appear to care very much or be very reliable, so I don’t think I will buy from him.”
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Top 5 Sales Management Best Practices
- July 24, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s see how those actually compare with the Top 5 Sales Management Best Practices – not the things sales managers necessarily do, but the things sales managers should do:
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Another HBR Article on Sales Leaves Me with Mixed Feelings
- July 20, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was asked to comment on an article called The End of Solution Selling, which appeared in Harvard Business Review. The article was generally right on, but it also included several things that irritated me enough to question them and the article.
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Prospecting Trends for the Sales Force
- July 19, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Three salespeople left voice-mail messages for me today. They were all cold calls, they were all bad, and they were all following up on brochures they dropped off last week. Nothing out of the ordinary here, as one of the callers wanted to know when our copier leases expire, one wanted to know when our commercial real estate lease expires and two wanted to introduce themselves as our new reps.
There are several reasons why they were so bad:
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Disagreement Over Sales Leadership Best Practices?
- July 17, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When sales leaders initiate the questions, how do they differentiate best practices from stupid practices?