Search Results
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How Would These Sports Celebrities Perform in Sales?
- October 23, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
I decided to lighten things up a bit with my analysis of how some famous sports celebrities would perform if they were in sales. You’ll enjoy this one.
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The Biggest Secret of Sales Rockstars
- October 20, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Music and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
In the old days, after speaking at a conference, I would frequently be told that I was the top-rated speaker at the event. More recently, people have told me that I “Rocked!” One time, as I was being introduced, an audience member came up to me and said, “Don’t Suck!” We can’t always be rock stars…
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Don’t Sell the Value – BE the Value!
- October 14, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Fast forward to the present and customers are so done with both value propositions and value adds. Today, if there is to be any real value that differentiates one company over a competitor, it is the salesperson, who must not only provide some value, but also BE the value.
How then, is a salesperson to BE the value?
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Solitaire and Modern Sales Training – What Should it Cover and Include?
- October 6, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve been playing one of those Solitaire games on my iPad and I can routinely score in the neighborhood of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with my best time being just under 2 minutes. I thought I was doing pretty well until I realized that my wife routinely scores between 1 minute and 1:20 seconds with her best scores (not score) being under 1 minute. She has scored as low as 48 seconds.
If not for my wife, I would have thought I was a real pro at Solitaire!
This is exactly how many CEO’s, Presidents and Sales VP’s view their sales forces. Without anything or anyone with whom to compare, they form their judgements on sales effectiveness in a vacuum. I routinely hear things like, “We have a custom sales process.”, and “We’ve been working on consultative selling.” Yet, after a sales force evaluation has been completed, those same companies are routinely found to have been lagging, not leading, in those areas.
When it comes to providing sales training for your sales force, what exactly, should modern training include?
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Are Salespeople Also Joggers?
- September 26, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
As I drove to work today, I passed 4 joggers, all with different styles, paces and appearances. As usual, I saw the similarities between what I observed and the sales profession.
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Starting with the Sales Management Team – Is it a Bad Decision?
- August 21, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Companies typically have 5 reasons for starting with the sales managers:
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This is the One Thing Missing from the New Way of Selling
- June 20, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Prospects aren’t ready to buy at this point in their process, they’re just getting finished with looking at their options! Salespeople don’t have qualified or closable opportunities at this point, but they’re acting as if they did, creating and sending unqualified proposals, making assumptions, and hoping for the best.
What’s Missing?
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Fine Tune Your Sales Force as You Optimize Your Computer
- June 18, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
I deleted about 10,000 sent items from Outlook, repaired the machine’s permissions, restarted the laptop, and it was performing to expectations again. I was excited about what I had accomplished in such a short time!
That process isn’t very different from what executives must do with an underperforming sales force.
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Top 20 Reasons Why Data May Not be the Key to Boosting Sales
- June 11, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force
I read somewhere that data was the key to boosting sales. Really? Says who?
When you look into the “who”, it should come as no surprise that it’s the companies that provide data analytics that say so. Don’t get me wrong; data (and especially the right data) can be very useful. But data, by itself, doesn’t boost anything.
If you are getting the right data…
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Finding the Right Sales and Sales Management Candidates
- May 22, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Seven years ago, a company may have wanted sales managers who were task masters, holding salespeople accountable to top of the funnel metrics. While that could still be true today, a company should be looking for a sales manager who is an extremely effective sales coach, who spends 50% of the available time coaching and developing salespeople.
