Search Results
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Sales Effectiveness – How to Win Every RFP That You Respond To
- June 19, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I am amazed by the sheer number of salespeople who believe they must respond to an RFP, RFQ or RFI. The resources, including people, time and money, required to respond to the specs from just one of these requests is daunting. Some companies have so many requests coming in that they spend all of their time responding to them. This is crazy! Do you respond to every email you receive? Every call you get? After all, it’s a request, not a demand. So why the frenzy over responding and replying so quickly? You won’t believe some of the reasons!
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Sales Science and Data Win the Day
- June 15, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
There were some really great articles from the first half of the year. I’ll share the top 3 by views, the top 3 by shares and the top 3 by engagement but you’ll instantly notice that whether it’s views, shares or engagement, sales science and data – stuff you can sink your teeth into – win the day.
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Predict the Weather but Control the Sales Forecast and Revenue
- June 6, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Understanding the Sales Force
You may be familiar when the rant sounds like: “It’s almost the end of the quarter, we’re only at 65% of forecast, the pipeline is half empty, and nothing is closing. With the exception of 3 nice deals that came in during May, our salespeople have sucked.”
While the crappy weather and your crappy 2nd quarter revenue have crappy in common, there is one huge difference that can help you hit your sales forecast even when the weather forecast is for rain.
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10 Selling Scenarios When You Must Slow Down
- February 7, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Rick Porcello’s thoughts about the importance of slowing down in certain situations and focusing on the present apply to the following 10 sales and sales leadership scenarios. Slow down:
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Sales Excellence: How to Close Anything and Everything in Any Vertical
- January 30, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
I am going to share the real truth about closing and it’s quite different from what you’ve read, what you’ve listened to, what you’ve watched, and probably from what you’ve practiced. Countless books, tapes, videos and podcasts have been devoted to closing techniques. Thousands of companies deliver seminars and training programs to help salespeople develop their closing skills. They’re all wrong and they have all wasted your time.
I have written 1,600 articles and not once have I shared the closing secret that I am about to share in this article.
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Sales Podcasts and Video Interviews are Better Than Sales Articles
- January 27, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Over the years there have been a number of interviews that were well done, and worth listening to and/or watching. A good interview is so dependent on the interviewer, the questions they ask, and their ability to go off script and let the conversation flow.
It is finally time to devote a series to podcasts and interviews. Here are the top interviews with me from the past several years with the most recent at the bottom of the list:
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The Fastest and Easiest Way to Reach Sales Greatness
- January 17, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the things I hear an awful lot is, “Dave, how do you write so many articles?”
1,600 articles in 10 years equates to an average of about 3 articles each of the 48 weeks that I work. The secret behind that kind of prolific writing can actually help you too – to find and close more business, sell more consultatively, qualify more thoroughly, and earn more money. Would you like to know what that secret is? I’ll share it below.
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Companies Rush to Get This One Thing in Place for their Sales Teams Before January
- December 1, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
Over the past few months, the majority of the calls and emails coming in have been to get help building predictive scorecards. Yesterday alone I spoke with the CEO’s from 3 companies about building and slotting scorecards into their existing sales processes.
Why the sudden rage over scorecards?
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Sales 102 – The Pitch Deck, the Price Reduction and the Data
- September 29, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Recently I met with a CEO whose salespeople were not closing enough business. We had just evaluated their sales force and I had the answers as to why their sales were so underwhelming. Before we could explain what was causing their problem, the CEO said something along the lines of, “We are going to create a new pitch deck and reduce our prices. That will solve the problem!”
They weren’t suggesting a small price change either. It sounded like an 80% reduction and their reasoning overlapped with one of the contributing issues that we identified. Their salespeople weren’t reaching decision makers which raises more questions. Why weren’t they reaching decision makers and could anything be done about it? Would lowering their prices solve the problem or did the issue go deeper than that?
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HBR or OMG – Whose Criteria Really Differentiate the Top and Bottom 10% of Salespeople?
- August 22, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Junk Sales Science Debunked, Sales Assessments Compared, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
In their June 20, 2016 article, A Portrait of the Overperforming Salesperson, HBR identified several traits, attitudes and actions that they claim differentiate the top from bottom performers. I’ll summarize it for you below and then explain why I believe it is junk. The findings include:
