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Top 10 Keys to an Effective Sales Hiring Process
- August 11, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are many keys to making the the sales hiring process work effectively yet most companies fail to get these keys right. Some of them are obvious, while some are more subtle. And most of all, the integrity, or in this case, the outcome of the process is only as strong as the weakest link. Ignore or fail to complete any one step the way it is designed and the entire outcome will be in jeopardy, as in, another salesperson that fails to launch, doesn’t meet expectations, or succeeds at being utterly mediocre.
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Harvard Business Review Blog Post Gets Salespeople Wrong
- August 9, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The Blog at the Harvard Business Review recently ran this article about the top seven personality traits of successful salespeople. Thanks to Peter for sending this along to me.
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Busy Salespeople are Lazy Salespeople
- August 8, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Things aren’t always what they seem with your salespeople. Sometimes, the busier they are, the less they are doing! I had several conversations in the past week that explain my opening comment.
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What it Takes to Make Your Sales Pipeline Accurate & Predictive
- August 5, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday, while speaking in DC, I asked my usual questions, but the response to one of the questions left me scratching my head. It wasn’t a new question; as a matter of fact, I’ve been asking it for years. And, as you can see below, I’ve been writing about the pipeline in various ways for years:
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Top 6 Keys to Closing Big, Difficult to Close Sales
- August 3, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If I think back on most of the big deals I have closed, helped others to close, or trained and coached others to close, there are several common themes we can discuss that you can incorporate into your sales and sales management world. For the purpose of this article, we will assume that the opportunities are actually closable, that your salespeople teed these deals up in an appropriate way, and that they didn’t have happy ears:
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25 or 6 to 4 and your Sales Force
- August 1, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
That 14-year swing is huge. You can’t afford to have your salespeople behaving like facilitators, order takers, account managers and amateurs – ever. You need them to be proactive – selling consultatively, everywhere, and always.
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What Makes Salespeople Stand Out from the Crowd?
- July 28, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Great salespeople are a jigsaw puzzle with each data point representing just one piece, not the whole picture. And nothing connects more of the pieces of the puzzle than a customized, sales specific OMG sales candidate assessment.
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Tenure – Could it Possibly Be a Good Thing for your Sales Force?
- July 25, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s good when people feel positive about their situation, allowing them to perform their most brilliant work. It’s bad when their sense of permanence causes them to do as little as possible. It’s good when it makes the company appear stable to those prospective companies who would consider doing business with you. It’s bad when their sense of entitlement causes them to believe that the work that must be done is now beneath them. And so goes the tenure argument.
What about tenure with salespeople?
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Differentiating Yourself on Sales Calls
- July 20, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Your prospects would have seen five products that looked similar, were competitively priced, and that claimed nearly identical features and benefits. So how would each of those product salespeople differentiate themselves and their offerings?
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How to Prevent Crashing and Burning in a Sales Presentation
- July 19, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So the increasingly difficult challenge for salespeople, even if they recognize it (and most don’t), is this: When they are invited in to present capabilities, they must compare it to driving into a dead-end alley. They must shift gears into reverse because if they push forward they will crash, burn, blow-up and die.