Search Results
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Increase in Social Selling Yields No Improvement in KPI’s
- November 5, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For all the attention that these sites get, for all the salespeople who now spend their evenings perfecting their profile, adding people to their networks and asking for introductions, what hasn’t changed for the better are these key metrics:
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Top 4 Reasons Salespeople Struggle to Reach Decision Makers
- October 30, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force
So here we are again, with half of the salespeople reporting that they aren’t reaching decision makers. And why would a decision maker want to be reached if the salespeople are focused only on presentations? And companies wonder why their sales cycles are so long, their closing percentages are so low and their margins are slip sliding away…
Also noteworthy were these findings from the survey results:
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Experiment – Which Sales Approach is Really More Effective?
- October 28, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
During the past 90 days, I have been secretly selling multiple ways. On one third of our opportunities, I have been selling the way we teach – using a formal, structured sales process with a consultative approach. On another third of our opportunities (inbound leads), I have experimented with a more transactional approach, although even that has a consultative element because I can’t help but ask some good questions. It simply means that I show and tell much earlier than normal. With the remaining third of our leads, I have experimented with allowing the buyer to dictate the process. My buyer-dictated approach included a little push-back because I can’t allow a potential client to take the wrong approach to a solution.
Want to know what happened? Look at the table below:
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Selling – We’re Going Back to AIDA And You Should Be Scared
- October 25, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
While the tools have changed, information is available in the blink of a click, and leads are in huge supply, people, at their core, have not changed the way they buy.
Sure, they may be meeting with or speaking with salespeople later in their buying process. Sure, they may take longer to make decisions. Sure, they may be more diligent about spending their money. But the one thing that has not changed is that they still have some motivation – some compelling reason – to spend their money and spend it with you instead of someone else.
The rush to embrace inbound marketing comes with a false sense of security and a poorly grounded belief that the sale is somehow easier, faster and more demo-centric today.
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The Monumental Effort Required to Grow Sales in 2014
- October 15, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When you look ahead to sales for the next 12 months, are you using the same assumptions as always? If you want to grow by 20%, do you use the same metrics for next year that you used for last year? Will the plan that got you there last year continue to work next year? Have you accounted for any of these changes?
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Science and the Length of Your Sales Cycle
- October 9, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
A really important factor is exactly what salespeople actually believe – what they think – relative to the sales cycle. Read some of the beliefs that this sales force had around the sales cycle:
Those two factors alone are enough to double the length of a sales cycle! There are still 9 more factors that have an impact; however, just from what we’ve discussed and reviewed so far, it’s obvious that this company’s sales cycle is M-U-C-H longer than it needs to be.
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Why CEOs/Presidents Tolerate Ineffective Sales Management
- October 7, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Lack of overall sales performance is an easily recognized problem. A savvy President or CEO may correctly identify the symptoms: inaccurate forecasts, a lack of new opportunities, new salespeople failing to ramp-up quickly enough, delayed closings, and complacency. However, they usually fail to understand that these issues are not sales issues, but sales management issues.
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The Connection Between Gas Prices and Sales Lead Follow Up
- September 26, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Why do salespeople still do the things they used to do, even though those things don’t work anymore. For example, why do salespeople still sell transactionally when presenting/demoing, quoting/proposing and closing yields a 10-20% conversion ratio? Even if they were in hiding, everyone must have heard by now that a typical B2B sale requires a customer-centric consultative approach.
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Specific Words are So Crucial to a Sales Conversation
- August 27, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
I just returned from a speaking engagement in Athens and had to stop at passport control several times during this trip. They always ask, “What kind of business?” and over the years I’ve used them all: consulting, speaking, training, business adviser, author, coaching, etc. I’ve learned that if I want to be interrogated, “speaker” would be the answer of choice. If I simply want to answer a few questions, “consultant” will do the trick. But to elicit the desired yawn from the officers, I only need to say “attend a conference.” Words make a huge difference and if you like scripts, you’ll be disappointed. But a well-chosen word or phrase at just the right time can be the difference between a resistant prospect and an intrigued one. Do you pay enough attention to the things you do and say as well as how you say them just before a prospect becomes resistant or more engaged? Well, you should!
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Why Do Salespeople Forget What They Learn?
- August 21, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Some salespeople are fortunate enough to get trained and/or coached. Maybe it’s an all-day seminar, not really training as much as exposure to some different thinking or approach. We don’t expect anything to change from a single day, so why should you? I went to a short game golf school for a day. It was awesome while I was there, but 4 years later, I can’t do any of the things I learned there. Comprehensive sales training (8-16 months) leads us to expect dramatic change and a significant increase in sales.