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Analogies for Boosting Sales
- January 21, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve created a series of some of my better analogies in the hope that they provide some of those “ah-ha” moments which are so valuable to improving your sales force.
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What Meteorologists Have in Common with Salespeople
- January 19, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Wow! A plowable snow event. No hype, no accumulation predictions, no mystery about the ever-moving rain/snow line, no warnings about treacherous travel, no details about the track of the storm and where it might go, just a “plowable snow event”. The excitement and exhaustion from the previous 3 storms had surely numbed her senses.
How does this apply to your sales force?
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The Sales Force and Beyond – Customer Impressions
- January 18, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Lesson for National: They may have the simplest VIP rental car pick up program on Planet Earth but if the people suck, so does the program! At least it sucks compared with Avis and Hertz (in my opinion).
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Death Defying Sales Calls – Don’t Get Run Off the Road
- January 13, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have a healthy degree of skepticism, push back and challenge everything you hear, especially when it’s what you wanted to hear, to avoid a case of happy ears.
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How Much Crap Do You Put Up With From Your Sales Force?
- January 12, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As much as this title resonates for most of you, your salespeople will probably ask, “Are you kidding me? It should say, ‘How much crap do we have to put up with from Management’?”
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The Will to Succeed, Sell Anything, Top Sales Books, and Coaching
- January 10, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was just wondering – do you or your salespeople play the lottery? Do you or any of your salespeople have an inheritance coming? These are two things that you might not think anything of but they can cause salespeople to lack the consistency and effort that are so important to sales success. Salespeople maintain the mindset that financial success and independence, and the freedom to have what they want, when they want it, regardless of cost, must be earned and not handed to them. Big base salaries and commissions from residual business can have an even greater negative effect except they are even more immediate threats to productivity than lotteries and inheritances!
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Did Your Salespeople Choose to Be in Sales?
- January 5, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Even if you reviewed as many resumes as I do each week you might not notice this: Most sales candidates did not have a sales position as their first job after college. Most started as something else and then, out of the blue, they were in sales, sales management, marketing, or business development. I always get suspicious when somewhere back in time a candidate went from Purchasing to Sales Management and never sold along the way…
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Top 10 Steps to Initiate Salespeople to Their Roles
- January 4, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is exactly how to initiate salespeople, whether they are new to your company, new to their role, or new to sales. Don’t vary at all from the steps above. More importantly, don’t assume that because they have sold for 10 years they’ll know what to do or be able to do it effectively. Follow the steps!
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Top 3 Sales Lessons from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”
- December 20, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During a first sales call, suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, “This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this.” And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, “We’ll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we’ve made.” And still a third might say, “In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and timeline.”
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Prediction for Your Company’s Sales Force in 2011
- December 17, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
10 Sales Experts were inducted into the Top Sales Hall of Fame at yesterday’s Top Sales Awards event. They include legends, both living and deceased, like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracey and Earl Nightingale. Current legends like Gerhard Gschwandter and Jeffrey Gitomer were honored. Others who were inducted include Keith Rosen, Bill Brooks, Linda Richardson, Neil Rackham and Dr. Tony Allasandra.