Search Results

  • Sales Leadership Observations about Pipeline and Terminations
    • June 3, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Understanding the Sales Force

    It gets a bit scary when people who are experts in one thing write about another.  Today’s example was sent to me by OMG partner Mike Shannon.  He sent along a recent BtoBonline.com post by Jeff Perkins.  Jeff suggests that the sales funnel is a thing of the past, but his examples, and therefore reasons, are way off base.  He seems confused about what the sales pipeline or funnel is supposed to do for us.  

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  • Inc Magazine Gets it Wrong on Sales Prospecting
    • May 31, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Junk Sales Science Debunked, Understanding the Sales Force

    In his article, he shares a systematic approach for prospecting “loosely based upon a conversation with Thomas Ray Crowel.”  My interpretation of his use of the word “loosely” is that he contributed his own opinions to this systematic approach.  That makes the article all the more disappointing.

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  • Top 5 Reasons Why Salespeople Don’t Qualify Effectively
    • April 17, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force

    Last week, I posted this article in reference to an Inc. Magazine article that was way off base about Consultative Selling.  It led to a significant number of comments with one of them being this question:

    “Dave, in your opinion, with all the training that is available and has been delivered to sales people over the years, how come sales people still fail at executing an effective approach to qualifying a prospect. Forget what we want to call the approach. Just basic fundamentals like asking questions. This is known throughout the selling universe but sales people still suck at this. How come?”

    Great question.  Here are my top 6 reasons why:

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  • Top 20 Reasons Why Sales Managers Suck at Coaching
    • April 4, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force

    So why aren’t more sales managers effective at coaching salespeople?  Here are my top 19 reasons and I left #20 open so that you could add your two-cents worth.

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  • Inc Magazine Misses on the 13 Traits of an Outstanding Salesperson
    • March 14, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I just read the 13 Traits of An Outstanding Salesperson, an article that appeared on Inc.com.

    As usual, I had several thoughts about this so, in no particular order…

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  • Top 10 Problems with Veteran Salespeople
    • January 28, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force

    For companies who want to grow revenue, veteran salespeople cause more problems than any other factor.  After all, if you have a young, energetic group, there’s nowhere to go but up and everyone knows that they need to improve.  On the other hand, veteran salespeople believe that they know everything and everyone and probably could lead the sales training class.  

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  • Tighter Sales Metrics at New Year Leads to Improved Success
    • January 7, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    That leads to your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) or metrics which drive revenue.  If you collect these now via a daily huddle, that’s terrific; let’s tighten them up.  If you don’t currently have your sales team calling in every morning for 10 minutes, you’re missing out on a critical piece of accountability, team-building and intelligence.

    How can you tighten up your metrics?

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  • All-Time Top Kurlan Sales Article
    • December 20, 2012
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Whether you’re using a personality assessment, behavioral styles assessment, psychological assessment, or psychometric (describes all of the above) assessment, it’s the marketing that’s sales-specific, not the findings.  Use them at your own risk.

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  • Sales Incentives, Awards, Lead Follow-Up and Sales Effectiveness
    • December 19, 2012
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In the case of appointment setters, as in the email above, training them to be more effective with the appointment-setting conversation will pay dividends too.  Not only will the appointments be more qualified, there will actually be more, better-qualified appointments!

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