• Top 10 Reasons Why Your Great New Salesperson Might Fail

    • June 30, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When a great salesperson is recommended by Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessment, and this star has a great track record, and great references, should we expect this person to succeed?

    Most executives do.

    But even though salespeople will tell you that “If you can sell, you can sell anything”, that statement is only true some of the time.  Here are some examples of salespeople who are successful in one environment, but usually fail in another:

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  • United Airlines Uses Customer Service This Way to Impact Sales

    • June 26, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Customer service has a very important selling role.  Their job is to solve a customer’s problem and do it in such a way that the customer forgets about the problem they had and remembers only how well and painlessly their problem was solved and how nicely they were treated in the process.  When companies screw this up, customer service has succeeded in UNSELLING a customer.  It isn’t rocket science, but it does reflect poorly on recruiting, selection, management, onboarding and training.

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  • This is the One Thing Missing from the New Way of Selling

    • June 20, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Prospects aren’t ready to buy at this point in their process, they’re just getting finished with looking at their options!  Salespeople don’t have qualified or closable opportunities at this point, but they’re acting as if they did, creating and sending unqualified proposals, making assumptions, and hoping for the best.

    What’s Missing?

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  • Fine Tune Your Sales Force as You Optimize Your Computer

    • June 18, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I deleted about 10,000 sent items from Outlook, repaired the machine’s permissions, restarted the laptop, and it was performing to expectations again.  I was excited about what I had accomplished in such a short time!

    That process isn’t very different from what executives must do with an underperforming sales force.

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  • How Stealing 2nd Base is Today’s Secret to Success in Sales

    • June 16, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The count on the batter was 2-1 and it was time for a desperate fourth chat.  This time, I demanded, with dire consequences (that I won’t reveal here), that he steal.  He went.  The catcher threw and he was safe at 2nd and the run scored.  A momentary victory in the game within the game.  A play that will change him, even though it wouldn’t change the eventual outcome of the game.

    This morning, thinking about that play again, I’m reminded of two selling scenarios that are nearly identical.

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  • Top 20 Reasons Why Data May Not be the Key to Boosting Sales

    • June 11, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I read somewhere that data was the key to boosting sales.  Really?  Says who?

    When you look into the “who”, it should come as no surprise that it’s the companies that provide data analytics that say so.  Don’t get me wrong; data (and especially the right data) can be very useful.  But data, by itself, doesn’t boost anything.

    If you are getting the right data…

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  • The 10 Keys to Effective Group Sales Presentations

    • June 9, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The only difference between speaking to dozens, hundreds or thousands, and presenting to groups on a sales call, are the number of believers.  It’s our job to find a way to get as many people as possible to believe in us, our ideas, our capabilities, our value and the impact we can have on them and their business.

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  • The Sales Epidemic That is Neutralizing Salespeople Everywhere

    • June 4, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The Selling Power Blog published a new article of mine, The Top 10 Steps Salespeople Can Take to Improve.  The article includes a really terrific video on the importance of tonality.  I thought it would be helpful to expand on item #5, Persistence, because selling requires more persistence than ever before.

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  • The Sales Conversation CEO’s & Sales VP’s Must Have with HR

    • June 2, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had to laugh when I was told that our assessment was “correct in not recommending” her for the sales position at her company, but “the other assessment was a more accurate description” of her.

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  • Key to Significantly Improve Sales Training Results

    • May 28, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The best players, getting the advanced instruction on the travel teams, improve the most.  Those same kids, on their regular season team, learn almost nothing new and aren’t challenged or pushed.  Practice, and sometimes even the games, can be so boring for them that they don’t play their very best.

    Translation from Baseball to Selling

    If we translate all of that baseball to selling, the only two things that change are the activity and the age of the people being coached and trained.

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