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The Biblical Sales Force Part 4 – Accountability
- January 4, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Having a job in sales should not be the equivalent to membership in a country club, where you are welcome until you resign. On the contrary. It’s a privilege, and with it comes a requirement for sales excellence, not sales mediocrity.
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The Requirements for Achieving Sales Excellence
- January 3, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For most people, the New Year is a forward-looking time time for goal setting, planning, and resolutions. Nothing wrong with that. But as someone who likes breaking rules and pushing the envelope, I’m starting the New Year by looking back to January of 2024.
Last January, my first article included the introduction of my new Sales Grid. Check it out if you’re not familiar with it because it is a blueprint for quota-busting sales success. Then watch the short video that follows and read the article on how to achieve sales excellence.
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Why Most Salespeople Require More Training and Repetition
- December 12, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The people who enter sales immediately after high school or college graduation learn sales from the ground up and are better trained and prepared for what they will encounter and what they must do in those situations. However, those who make career changes and transition to sales later in their career, don’t benefit from nearly as much sales training, receiving mostly product training instead. That forces them to rely on instincts, which are not based on sales experience or wisdom, and often guide them to do what makes them comfortable, as opposed to what makes them effective.
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Top Sales & Sales Leadership Articles of 2024
- December 12, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you’ve been reading this Blog for more than a couple of years, or since 2006, then you know that every December I post the best articles of the past year. This year there are five articles listed in the category of best Sales Leadership articles, there are ten articles listed in the category of best sales articles of the year, and five more that are my personal favorites. Additionally, I listed the top five video rants of 2024 to give you a bit more value while you are here.
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Everything About Baseline Selling on One Page
- December 11, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
On this page you’ll find everything you always wanted to know about how to get Baseline Selling content and training – all in one place.
Baseline Selling is a proprietary sales process and methodology that Dave Kurlan developed in 2005. It uses the metaphor of the baseball diamond to visualize the sales process and any corporate sales process can be overlaid, integrated or married to it, making it the most flexible sales process ever to be introduced.
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The Nutcracker and 3 Sales Competencies That Cause Low Win Rates
- December 6, 2024
- 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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Three Dog Night Classic is Foundation for Present Day Selling
- November 26, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you start with the having fun part you can’t go wrong. Most selling is WAY too serious, way too dependent on bullet points from slides, talking points from company narratives, and the oh, so boring vomiting of company and product information. Where’s the fun in all of that? And if you don’t bring the fun, who wants to spend any time with you? Differentiate!
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The Biblical Sales Force Part 3 – Numbers: Metrics and KPIs
- November 23, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In my experience, most companies have KPIs in their sales organizations but the real issue is usually whether or not the KPIs they trot out actually drive revenue. In most cases, they do not.
KPIs must be forward looking indicators, not lagging, or backwards looking results and most companies fail to make that key distinction. While last month’s revenue and gross profit numbers are an indicator of how the company performed (past tense), they do not indicate how the company WILL perform (forward looking).
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New Competency Has 10 Attributes for Post 2024 Sales Success
- November 18, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Uncategorized, Understanding the Sales Force
The problem is not that prospects and customers expect you to lie, the problem is that they wonder if you are being truthful, especially when it sounds too good to be true or they believe you are telling them what they want to hear.
Thank God that Larry Levine wrote and published Selling in a Post Trust World earlier this year! That’s a book that will help you adapt to these changing times. Another book that will have you selling more and selling with integrity is my timeless book, Baseline Selling-How to Become a Sales Superstar.
In addition to the 21 Sales Core Competencies that are current best practices, I officially recommend the following ten, additional, post 2024 selling attributes:
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Getting Salespeople to Prospect When They Aren’t Prospecting
- November 15, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While some growth can be expected to come from effective account management, the kind of growth desired by most companies comes from consistently finding and closing new accounts. While companies love their inbound lead-generation programs, and those programs do generate leads, the quality of the leads, and the quality of the meetings booked by those young and inexperienced top-of-funnel kids, leaves much to be desired.