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The Real Impact of Coaching Your Salespeople, Sales Managers
- April 1, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’m in the middle of another page-turner, this one called The Man Who Killed Kennedy – The Case Against LBJ. It’s difficult to put a positive spin on this amazing, insightful book, about one of the biggest assholes the USA has ever known, but I can take two unintentional sales-related lessons from the book:
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The Biggest Mistake Executives Make about their Sales Force
- March 18, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When sales are fine, there is no better time, because there is no pressure or urgency, to evaluate the sales force because it is at that very time that executives don’t know what they don’t know.
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Consultative Selling, Commitment and Training – Like Oil & Water
- March 14, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We recently evaluated a sales force where the salespeople had, on average, only 18% of the attributes of a consultative seller.
“How could that be?”, asked the Director of Sales. “Achieve Global has come in 3 times in 3 years to teach consultative selling!”
That could be the punchline, but it’s not.
So, why didn’t the training on consultative selling stick? There are reasons aplenty!
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Sales 2.0 Conference; The Huge Sales Blitz and Sales Processes
- March 11, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In my experience, there have always been two kinds of taxi drivers. The first asks how long I’m planning to stay and when they learn I’m flying back out the same day, they offer to pick me up for the return trip to the airport. This is the taxi-driver version of an account manager.
The second type ignores me, talks on his phone, gets me where I’m going and looks for his next fare. A hunter. Purely transactional. Just like a salesperson who knocks on doors.
But yesterday, I met a third type. He was a type 2, but with time management skills.
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Top 5 Reasons You Don’t Get More Strong Sales Candidates
- March 10, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Clients frequently ask about the percentage of candidates recommended by Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessment and why it is so low. When clients are feeling the urgency to hire salespeople and too many candidates are not getting recommended, their knee-jerk reaction is to change the customized criteria on the role configuration so that more candidates can be recommended. In this case, “more” would mean more like the ones they already have instead of more like the stronger ones they said they wanted to hire…
There are many possible reasons why a large percentage of candidates are not being recommended. Here are some to consider:
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Your Next Sales Candidate: Looking for “The One”
- March 5, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can get sales selection right, but it takes the right process, tools, interviewing skills, and selection criteria. As with the sales process, you can’t skip steps, take anything for granted, or be too casual about your role in any part of the process.
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College Basketball vs. the Pros & Sales Management & Selling
- March 3, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you live in fear and follow the path laid out by NBA head coaches, and just try to make everyone happy, you get the wrong outcome. Additionally, you show that you are not a good leader, you are not a good coach, you are not a good sales manager, and you are not a good role model. You are, in essence, a babysitter with all of the power of the 13-year old who can watch and entertain, but cannot make a decision.
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Top 10 Reasons For Inaccurate Forecasts
- February 28, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We joke a lot about sales forecasts being no more accurate than weather forecasts, but everything is relative. An inaccurate forecast of cloudy won’t have much of an impact on anyone, but an inaccurate forecast of sunny and warm might. An inaccurate forecast of flurries might not cause a problem if they don’t materialize, but an inaccurate forecast of a foot of snow – in either direction – has serious consequences.
Inaccurate sales forecasts are legendary. Here are the 10 most common reasons why salespeople, sales managers, Sales Directors and CEO’s suffer from this:
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Trust in Selling is Becoming More Important Than Ever
- February 26, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Trust is becoming more important than ever. Companies are focusing more on integrity and values, and that’s from both sides of the door. They are looking for salespeople, vendors, suppliers, partners and trusted advisors who have strong integrity. And they are also hiring the people (in this case, salespeople) who are deemed to be of a higher integrity. Trustworthy is the operative word here.
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2 Biggest Mistakes Companies Make with Sales Candidates
- February 24, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
At this point in the process, the candidate is the appetizer, movie trailer, and test drive – all rolled into one. If they don’t complete the application and assessment, then why do sales managers and HR managers try so hard to get them to do it? Haven’t these candidates already shown you all you need to know about their follow-through, follow-up, attention to detail, ability to work a sales process, ability to take direction, and commitment to the result? These candidates might even be thinking, “Not if I have to work this hard…”