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Sales Cycles and Time – Is it Running Out?
- June 1, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We are always focused on sales cycles. Are they optimized? Are they taking too long? Can they be improved? How many calls should they take? Are we doing things that make the sales cycle take longer than necessary? For example, the sales cycle can be shortened in direct proportion to how high your salespeople call in the company.
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Hire the Best Salespeople on the Planet
- May 28, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Several months ago Objective Management Group began to identify hirable candidates that are ideal – they will ramp-up more quickly than a normal hirable candidate. A normal candidate should ramp up according to this formula I devised many years ago:
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Salespeople Should be More Like Children
- May 28, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Wouldn’t it be nice if all of your salespeople simply made it their number one priority to find the opportunities required to keep their pipeline stuffed with quality opportunities?
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More than Half of All Sales Managers Should Consider….
- May 19, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
After posting this article two weeks ago, showing the percentage of salespeople who are not trainable, who shouldn’t be in sales, and who are elite, it was inevitable that I would be asked to post similar statistics for sales managers.
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Sales Experts Disagree on Right Way to Train Salespeople
- May 15, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was involved in a nearly week long, on line discussion with about a half dozen other sales experts in the Top Sales Experts Group at LinkedIn that to date has included about 41 volleys. The original question, raised by the UK publisher of modernselling.com, asked whether there was a right way or a wrong way to train salespeople. While there was some agreement on some points, there was much disagreement on many points.
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Why Corporate Sales Training Often Fails to Achieve Desired Results
- May 8, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Why do you train salespeople and sales managers?
Some companies want to educate them and improve their skills. Some feel obligated to provide training while others provide training to improve results. Some do it to help their salespeople, improve morale and feel good about making it available. These are all very noble concepts, but usually achieve disappointing outcomes.
Train your salespeople to change your salespeople. Until THEY change, their beliefs, behaviors, strategies and tactics won’t change. And there’s the problem.
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How Many Salespeople Shouldn’t be in Sales?
- May 8, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Our certified sales development expert in Singapore, Ray Bigger, of Think8, asked if we had data on what percentage of salespeople should be considered for a different role. Of course we do, Ray!
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What Should You Tell Your Salespeople in this Economy?
- May 6, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
From time to time I have written about what you must do with your salespeople in this economy. Would you like to hear what that actually sounds like?
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Dell Resorts to Questionable Sales Tactics to Drive Revenue
- May 5, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today, I received an email from Dell showcasing their latest ill conceived scheme to generate revenue.
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Differentiating a Pricing Strategy from a Sales Strategy
- May 1, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do you subscribe to Verne’s Insights – 10 Minutes with the Growth Guy – Verne Harnish? You should. It’s the best newsletter I get – one I actually read each week! In today’s issue Verne wrote that his favorite quote from last week’s Sales & Marketing Summit was Mark Burton’s, “Discounting is the crack cocaine for business today”. He also shared that “instead, Burton says companies can use a ‘good, better, best’ strategy to provide various pricing levels without simply giving away margin.”
Wait a minute!!!