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  • The Philosophy of a Pitching Coach Will Improve Your Sales Team
    • April 4, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

    I find ideas and material for this Blog everywhere, especially when I’m not looking for them. Yesterday I received a daily email from a Paul Reddick, a baseball coach who was drumming up some business for his baseball institute. It resonated – not for its baseball coaching – but as sales coaching.  Here’s what it said:

    If your coach is talking about any of the pitching flaws that you see listed above…

    Run… Run Fast!

    That Coach is working on “flaws” that will have no impact on your pitching.  He is working on symptoms… not the illness!  He is trying to fix things that are happening as a byproduct of incorrect movement early in your delivery. If you get the first second of your delivery right, almost all of these flaws get fixed instantly. 

    Do you know how this applies to sales? 

    I’ll explain exactly how it applies and I promise you will be surprised!  Click here to read last year’s fun article comparing pitcher’s fielding practice (PFP) to role-playing in sales.

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  • Bob Chronicles Part 6 – When Salespeople Suddenly Make Things Your Problem
    • January 20, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Bob Chronicles, Understanding the Sales Force

    Bob was informed 2 weeks ago that an important customer proposal would be due by the end of business today. At 4pm, Bob was in a panic, screaming that he needed pricing in the next 10 minutes or you’ll lose the business.  Suddenly it has become your problem.

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  • Has Buying Changed and Has B2B Selling Adapted?
    • January 5, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

    Today’s buyers are self-educated and salespeople mistake that knowledge for readiness. Salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance and the knowledge they mistake for readiness lulls them into the quote, proposal and order taking mode.  As a result, they don’t follow their company’s sales process or worse, the company’s sales process has been modified to reflect buyers being ready.  If the buyers were truly ready at this point they would actually buy but the additional options prolong instead of shorten the sales process.

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  • How To Stop Sucking by Understanding and Changing Your Sales Metrics
    • August 30, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

    Suppose a company reports that its win rate is 24%.  Does that tell you anything other than they suck?  It doesn’t tell us how badly they suck, why they suck, how long they’ve sucked, who sucks, or whether there is any hope for them to stop sucking.  And even if their win rate is double the 24%, the same questions apply. Let me explain.

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  • Salespeople Will Close 50% More Business By Changing This One Thing They Do!
    • August 5, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

    At Objective Management Group (OMG), one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies we measure and report on also tends to confuse salespeople, is the cause of frequent pushback, but has thirty-five years of cumulative science to support the finding and our conclusions.  Allow me to introduce you the competency called Supportive BuyCycleTM.

    BuyCycleTM represents how salespeople go about the process of making a major purchase and there is a 100% correlation between how they buy and the behavior they accept from their prospects.  For example:

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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
    • Categories: Bob Chronicles, Salespeople Like Children, 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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  • Self Directed Courses
    • June 3, 2021
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Categories:
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  • How to Use Buckets to Improve Sales Performance and Coaching
    • February 19, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

    Buckets are important, especially when you’re attempting to coach up a salesperson or even improve your own sales performance.  If you don’t have the OMG evaluation at your fingertips and can’t lookup the scores in 21 Sales Core Competencies, or see which attributes need to be improved, you’ll need to think in terms of buckets.

    When salespeople are struggling, there are five primary buckets to consider:

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  • The $225,000 Selling Mistake Most Salespeople Make
    • December 7, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Bob Chronicles, Understanding the Sales Force

    While colleagues and supervisors shared their enthusiasm for this exciting moment, my first reaction was, “And why do you think this is good news?” 

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