Search Results
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Salesperson’s Terrible Reaction Part 2
- October 31, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I posted a very short article where I discussed one salesperson’s reaction to a great sales role play. I received a number of emails telling me how helpful the video, story and lessons were.
The article highlighted Self-Limiting beliefs or negative self talk. Today we will take it a step further and discuss the other things that could have been at play – hidden weaknesses – and the interference they cause salespeople while selling to their prospects. Like chains, salespeople are only as strong as their weakest link…
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I Admit it – Why Words in Selling Really Are Important
- October 5, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it comes to words, there was probably nobody more clever than the comedic genius George Carlin. The video below is the funniest and best example of his use of words. Watch that and then we’ll talk about how the same premise applies to sales.
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The Second Most Important Sales Lesson of My Life
- September 8, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week I posted an article that told the story of the biggest sales lesson of my life. I received so many emails about that article because it seemed to really resonate with my readers. Yet, as much as it resonated, there was one question that several of them asked in their emails. They wanted to know why we were in that tenement building in the first place. And the answer to that question leads me to the second most important sales lesson of my life.
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Dissecting the #1 Sales Best Practice
- August 26, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One company is attempting to create a compilation of best sales practices by sending out a weekly survey to sales leaders and asking them to choose from multiple choice questions what they most often do and teach. The topic changes each week. This is silly because (1) it just isn’t that simple, (2) it’s different for each selling role, each vertical, the decision makers they call on, their price points, the length of their sales cycle, and their respective competition, just to name a few. In addition, when you ask multiple choice questions like this, the answers will be so varied that there won’t be even a few, never mind a single best practice. Here is an example of what they asked this week:
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Top 10 Reasons Why Sales Don’t Grow
- August 24, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force
Despite knowing that things don’t fix themselves, thousands of executives believe that sales problems will resolve themselves, change, and improve. Why?
That’s the key question. Because when you don’t know exactly what’s wrong, it’s much easier to remain in denial.
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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:
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4 Critical Changes to Go from Failure to Success in Sales Today
- July 18, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
Today I’m in Florida, preparing to speak at a company’s national meeting. Like many companies, they have not only realized that selling has changed dramatically, but that their salespeople may not have adapted, developed new skills, and changed the way they sell. If you’re a regular reader, active on LinkedIn or Social Media, then you have certainly read about the many ways that selling has changed. But most senior executives haven’t put two and two together yet. They know that win rates are down and sales cycles are longer, they know it’s more difficult than ever before, they see that their salespeople are struggling to meet quotas, but they don’t realize the extent to which things have changed. There are four critical requirements which, together are the difference between success and failure.
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11 Ways You Can Quickly Increase Sales, Revenue and Profit
- July 13, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Verne Harnish is the President of Gazelles – the coaching organization that helps fast growth companies. In addition to his best-selling books, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and his latest, Scaling Up, he writes the Weekly Insights, which I always read from top to bottom. In his June 30 insights, Verne included a quote from Greg Brenneman, author of Right Away and All at Once – 5 Steps to Transform Your Business and Enrich Your Life. Verne really liked Greg’s emphasis on how to drive sales. Greg says, “Empirical evidence shows that you get at least four times the market value for a dollar of profit that comes from revenue growth versus a dollar of profit that comes from cost reduction.”
Isn’t that a great quote? But it’s more than a quote. It’s a blueprint! Let’s discuss some of the ways that you can achieve the desired revenue growth.
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Big Data and Big Lies Have Arrived in the Sales Training and Assessment Space
- June 3, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday I received an email that you might have received too. It was a promotion from Top Sales World (TSW) to download a “Free Big Data-Driven Sales Training Report for Your Industry.” TSW was simply the messenger in this case, with the provider being The Sales Board. Like many of you, I clicked through and saw that their report was based on their assessments. And this is where it got really interesting for me! Their website read an awful lot like OMG’s – only the numbers were very different…
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4 Great Sales Lessons from a Notre Dame Commencement Ceremony
- May 17, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
We were fortunate to be in the audience for the 2016 Notre Dame Commencement where Vice President Joe Biden, former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired 4-Star General, Martin Dempsey were among the speakers. While all were good, Biden had one great takeaway, and the General shared 3 tips and an action step. I believe that these are all share-worthy and apply to sales and sales leadership as well, and perhaps even better than they apply to those graduating from universities.
