Search Results
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5 Steps to Grow Sales by 33% in 12 Months
- May 11, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales teams go through periods like this too but sales leaders rarely seek out the data that would immediately point to the real problem. They tend to hope things will improve and go from there. However, there are several levels of data to be reviewed so let’s take a look.
As the article title suggests, there are five steps you must take to grow sales by 33% in 12 months. You can’t pick and choose as all five are required.
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Do You Know the Accurate Reason Why a Salesperson Is Not Performing?
- April 20, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
How quickly can you determine why a salesperson is failing?
Dinger loves to play catch with his ball. He has seven of them but loves his white ball the most. When we’re out playing catch and I point to a ball and say, “there it is” or “right there” or “get it” he just can’t seem to find it! Dinger has good listening skills but his ability to see the obvious isn’t very good.
Such was the case earlier this week when a surprised client wanted an explanation for why one of their salespeople, who does not perform very well, scored well on his evaluation. “How can someone who is not my top performer score better than someone who is my top performer?”
That sounded like a challenge so I said, “Let’s go!”
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The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4,000% Better at this than the Bottom 10%
- March 3, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I found Dinger with his nose glued to my front bumper where some of the deer’s hair was still attached to my car. Dinger, who loves to bark at deer from the safety of our home, seemed to be saying, “Ohhhh, so THIS is what a deer smells like!”
The exact same thing happened to a salesperson I was training. It wasn’t a deer or a dog, it was about Jim’s sales aha moment.
His team was asked to send me an email with their five biggest lessons from their first six months of training. Among Jim’s top five was this one:
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When Salespeople Can’t Close Closable Business – The Bob Chronicles Part 7
- February 14, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what did Bob get himself into this time?
It’s a huge opportunity that Bob has been nurturing for years and several months ago his prospect, a top executive that has the influence and authority to make a decision, confided that he would like to find a way to do business and not only that, have this be part of his legacy.
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62% Less Turnover and 80% Higher Quota Attainment When You Hire Salespeople the Right Way
- February 3, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you have a sales cycle of several months or more, subsidize your salespeople until they are self-sufficient, and in early 2022 it takes 3 months to find a suitable candidate, you are screwed before you start! Once you finally identify a decent candidate, you have hours, not days or weeks, to make a decision and pull the trigger and what’s the worst that can happen? Six months or more pass before you realize that salesperson won’t make it and you not only wasted a half year’s salary, you lost six months, have an empty territory or vertical, and have to start over from the beginning!
It doesn’t have to be that way and here’s why.
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10 Prospect Rules That Salespeople Must Learn to Break
- January 24, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Like I said, this is not a COVID article because if it was, I could write a book about the data, science, policies and hypocrisies. However, there is a sales equivalent to the stupid restaurant masking requirement and that is what we will discuss in today’s article.
Have you or your salespeople ever been told by a prospect that they can’t:
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The Bob Chronicles Part 5 – Bob Can’t Win This Argument Over a Sales Core Competency
- June 22, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
OMG has assessed more than 2 million salespeople and measures their sales capabilities in 21 Sales Core Competencies. While some might not like their scores, most salespeople agree with our findings because they are extremely accurate. However, there is one competency of the 21 that causes salespeople to dig in, disagree, and push back. Today I will explain the competency and share yesterday’s conversation with Bob. For new readers, and those who don’t remember, Bob tends to get himself into trouble and is representative of all weak salespeople.
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Crappy Salespeople and Lack of Urgency Alignment – The Bob Chronicles Part 4
- April 27, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is the fourth installment in the Bob Chronicles. Bob is the weak salesperson who represents the bottom 50% of all salespeople. You can read previous installments about Bob below:
The $225,000 Mistake That Most Salespeople Make
Data – The Top Salespeople are 631% More Effective at This Than Weak Salespeople
Good Bob, Bad Bob, The Stockdale Paradox and Sales Success
You’re probably wondering, what did Bob screw up this time? He screwed up urgency. You might be asking how a salesperson could possibly screw up urgency but Bob and the rest of the weak salespeople screw up just about everything else so why not urgency too?
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31 Conditions That Predict Your Sales Opportunity is in Trouble
- April 16, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week, a crazy driver pulled out right in front of me and despite the fact that I anticipated his stupidity and would have been able to stop before smashing into this moron, my car wasn’t as certain as I was. My Genesis took matters into its own hands and went into all out protection mode – making sure nothing happened to it or me.
As advertised, it took over the braking and steering to protect itself, sounded all the alarms to alert me to its strategy and then did two things that really surprised me. All at once, the seat enveloped me in a cocoon and the seat belt tightened around my shoulders so that there was no chance that I was leaving that seat. Going through the windshield? Not a chance unless the whole seat was coming with me!
That was cool.
And it got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be cool if salespeople had a sales version of an early warning system/driver assist like my car has?
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Data – Top Salespeople are 631% More Effective at This Than Weak Salespeople (The Bob Chronicles – Part 3)
- January 26, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Bob is up to his old tricks. If you don’t know who Bob is, you can learn about his sales misadventures in this article on not properly selling a trial, and this article about not selling value. Both articles are of the must-read variety.
So what did Bob do to piss me off this week?