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10 Cringy Things Salespeople Do and 7 Reasons Why They Do It
- March 13, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Salespeople are responsible for a lot of cringy selling. In this article I share what I believe are the ten things salespeople do to elicit cringy reactions from their prospects and the top seven reasons for why half of all salespeople cause the cringe.
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New Data: My Top 5 Unacceptable Sales Performance Findings
- February 14, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The report says, “87% reported that their sales teams were having difficulty meeting or exceeding quota.” That is so much worse than what has been reported in recent years when the numbers were closer to 55%-60%. This is problematic for more than the obvious reason. When salespeople aren’t hitting quotas, companies need to hire more salespeople, which increases the cost of recruiting, salaries and benefits, not to mention the costs associated with hiring additional sales managers that won’t coach up their salespeople. It also reinforces a culture of mediocrity because when not hitting quota is normal and expected, more people don’t hit quota because their jobs are clearly not in jeopardy.
The next finding explains the previous finding.
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6 Benefits From Incorporating C2MPE in Your Selling Efforts
- February 10, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You could say that the Philadelphia Eagles showed up for Super Bowl LIX with tremendous urgency to win. You could also say that the Kanas City Chiefs made it clear that they lacked that same urgency.
While the single most important thing for salespeople to achieve in a discovery call is urgency, you can’t tell a prospect that they have urgency, you can’t manufacture urgency, and you can’t fake urgency.
Urgency arises from a combination of the following five factors which together, I call C2MPE:
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How Indecisiveness Undermines Sales and Sales Leadership Effectiveness
- February 1, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you are driving down the road in your car, looking at your phone, fiddling with your radio, looking at people walking on the sidewalk, weaving in and out of traffic or speeding because you’re in a hurry, you are probably not a very good driver and bad things will happen.
If you have a pile of files on your desk, a to-do list that must be scrolled to read, past-due proposals, and an empty pipeline, you are probably not very well organized, don’t manage your time very well, and likely behind on quota.
We’re referring to things we do that prevent us from being as effective as we could be or need to be and there is another one we should discuss, and that’s when a sales leader has a Non-Supportive Buy Cycle attribute of needing to think things over. In the 4-minute video below, which you must watch to understand the concept, I explain how the indecisiveness of a sales leader prevents them from being able to develop, coach up and grow their sales team.
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OMG Names Kurlan a Diamond Award Winner for 2024
- January 31, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: News
Kurlan & Associates earned the Diamond Award, the highest level of recognition from Objective Management Group, for its 2024 performance. Using OMG, Kurlan helped a multitude of clients evaluate their sales teams and assess their sales and sales management candidates to help companies make much better hires for their sales organizations.
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Top 20 Reasons Why Sales Opportunities Don’t Close
- January 28, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales Leaders who are frustrated with low win rates place the blame on closing skills when, in reality, it has NOTHING to do with closing! Watch this 2-minute video for an explanation and then continue reading below.
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Official Guidance for Sales Teams Navigating the 2nd Trump Economy
- January 20, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s discuss how the Trump economy will affect sales organizations.
It will be easier to schedule meetings – hooray!
It may be easier to reach decision makers – that’s awesome! They hide when they aren’t interested in spending.
Sales cycles will be shorter – that’s great news!
But with all that good news, I do have five warnings to share:
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How to Get Ready for Quota-Busting Sales Success
- January 18, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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Is BANT a Sales Process or a Man-Made Disaster?
- January 15, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week, I noticed that people are still using this archaic and overly simplistic sales qualifying process, and too many are still writing about the benefits of BANT (Acronym for Budget, Authority, Need, Timing). The first page of a Google search revealed 10 articles were written about BANT in 2024 alone.
How is it that in 2024, people are still hailing BANT as a relevant sales tool?
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Timing – A Secret Key to Sales Success
- January 9, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Timing is easy to recognize. When the timing is right anyone who calls can get a meeting scheduled. When the timing is bad, nobody who calls will get a meeting scheduled. Then there are all the occasions in the middle – the timing is neither good nor bad – where by asking the right questions and getting them to recognize they might have an issue you can help with, you do succeed at scheduling a meeting. These are the very meetings you want because early on, they aren’t talking with anyone other than you.