Search Results
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Elite Salespeople are 200% Better in These 3 Sales Competencies
- July 23, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Professional athletes have one trait in common – they are all very athletic and their skills are among the top several hundred in the world in their particular sport. For example, in Major League Baseball, there are 30 teams with 25 players each, making those ball players the top 750 in the world. Dig a little deeper and in each sport there is an even smaller subset of players who are all-stars
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The Perfect Day for a Salesperson – 10 Ways to be More Efficient and Effective in 2018
- December 8, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can be more effective and more efficient selling in 2018, do every single thing I wrote about in this article, exactly as I wrote it, and without any difficulty, by making a conscious decision to follow this blueprint. It’s not hard. It’s not scary. It’s not unusual. It’s not even thought-provoking. It’s simply a list of best practices that great salespeople (top 5%) do and that crappy (46%) salespeople either don’t do consistently or don’t do it at all.
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Getting Your Calls Returned
- January 19, 2015
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories: Monthly Tips, Tactics - Getting to 1st Base (Appointments)
About two years ago I published this tip with the most effective way to leave a voice mail message and get it returned. Read the tip before proceeding.
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The Latest and Greatest in Sales Force Effectiveness
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Spoiler Warning: This article is about my company and its new product. Stick around though and I think you’ll realize that it’s just as much about your company as it is mine.
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Achieve More Accurate Forecasts and Sales Results Today
- November 12, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week, a new client was explaining how he called several of the nearly 300 opportunities that one salesperson had in his pipeline. My client identified 7 opportunities that had no recent activity, but had been in the pipeline for several months and were supposed to close. Imagine my client’s surprise when:
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How Frequently Does Fear Play a Part in Sales?
- November 6, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Fear of failing doesn’t affect everyone that sells. The elite 6% are certainly immune to it, and most of the next 20% aren’t affected too much by it either. But the remaining 74% – the group that basically sucks – battles the fear of failing on a daily basis.
That fear – and most salespeople aren’t even consciously aware of it – prevents them from
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Baseball and Selling Revisited – A Powerful Analogy
- June 12, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A salesperson tells you about a great-looking opportunity that has been forecast to close this month. “We’re definitely getting this and it’s an awesome opportunity for us. We’re going to knock this one out of the park!”
At the end of the month, the deal hasn’t closed and you question your salesperson about it. You are told that the decision-maker has been away on vacation, but as soon as he returns, the deal is sure to get done.
A month later, nothing has changed. This time, the salesperson admits that he has had a little difficulty reaching the decision-maker, but he is sure that nothing has changed. You are assured that everything is good.
Six months later, when the deal still hasn’t closed, you force the salesperson to archive the opportunity with the salesperson still not understanding what went wrong.
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The Latest and Greatest in Sales Force Effectiveness
- April 24, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We have introduced our share of evaluation and assessment tools during the past 23 years, but this introduction was completely different. My team worked tirelessly for nearly an entire year on our latest gem and our Partners received it, with even more enthusiasm than we felt, when we completed the project just 48 hours earlier.
Why all the excitement?
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3 Types of Salespeople – Which are Best at Growing Sales?
- July 30, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The pessimist complains about the prospect. The optimist expects him to buy. The realist adjusts the sales strategy.
Let’s look at these three points a little more closely, shall we?
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Why Most Companies are Struggling to Grow Revenue
- April 25, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Dan Perry, writing at Sales Benchmark Index’s Sales Force Effectiveness Blog, wrote that “The single biggest problem with sales today is sales reps are mismatched to the buyer. They think like a sales rep and not like a buyer.”
Well, Dan, I don’t agree and I have the statistics to back me up.