Baseline Selling
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Sound Check for Sales: 3 Best Practices That Need a 2026 Overhaul
- March 12, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales closing is dead—time for a 2026 overhaul. Dave Kurlan shares why ‘finalizing’ replaces outdated closing, how fluid scoring and proper staging fix broken pipelines, and why buyer journeys need real discovery, not facilitation. No-BS tips to boost forecasts, shorten cycles, and win more.
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Vultures or the Trusted Name in Sales Training?
- March 2, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Tired of Sandler, Challenger, SPIN, or Value Selling not delivering? Discover why companies turn to Baseline Selling after those methodologies fall short—and why it’s not vulturing, it’s expertise.
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Why Salespeople Need Music Lessons Before They Start Selling
- January 26, 2026
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Just like most kids fail to learn guitar without lessons, most salespeople flop when thrown straight into the field with no real training. In this article, Dave Kurlan draws a fresh parallel from the music world: self-taught “players” rarely succeed without mastering the fundamentals—notes, scales, chords, and theory. The same goes for sales. Sink-or-swim onboarding leads to mistakes, missed quotas, and burnout, while formal sales training (including process, methodology, and role plays) delivers massive wins. Backed by data showing 14% higher quota attainment, faster ramp times, and huge ROI, Dave explains the missing ingredient most programs ignore: a repeatable sales process and methodology. If you want new reps to make real music in sales—not just noise—skip the shortcuts.
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The 42 Best Sales and Sales Leadership Articles, Videos and Innovations of 2025
- December 17, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Celebrate 20 years of sales wisdom on Understanding the Sales Force with Dave Kurlan’s 2025 roundup! Dive into the Top 10 Video Rants that roast common pitfalls (from demo disasters to quota mysteries), the Top 7 game-changing innovations like the Sales Cholesterol diagnostic and SCAM/SCAR retention radar, and three killer Top 10 lists: Dave’s personal faves (golf analogies to BANT takedowns), Grok’s picks (cringe sales moments to grit audits), and engagement champs (Trump economy tips to duck-vs-owl hacks). Capping it off? The undisputed #1: “The Sales Cholesterol Analogy,” the only article nailing three lists. Merry holidays—here’s to bolder selling in 2026!
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Sales Cholesterol Reveals If Your Sales Pipeline Is Clogged (And How to Fix It)
- October 31, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In this follow-up to my viral LinkedIn rant on pipeline blockages, I dive deeper into “sales cholesterol”—a new way to measure the health of your sales pipeline. Drawing from my quadruple bypass experience and inspired by comments from sales pros like Larry Levine, we map heart health metrics (HDL, LDL, ratios, and inflammation) to sales milestones using my Baseline Selling framework. Learn how to score opportunities, reps, and teams to spot clogs early, improve forecasts, and avoid those deadly stalls. No more unreliable probabilities—get objective diagnostics to tweak your lead gen “diet” or “medicate” with coaching.
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How Half-Measures in Your Sales Process Can Kill Your Win Rate
- October 15, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Dr. Charles Stanley’s take on The Lord’s Prayer sparked a revelation: just like prayer, a sales process needs belief and intent to work. Too many companies compromise, settling for “good enough” results. Learn how a no-compromise approach with Baseline Selling doubled win rates for clients, including a $24M-to-$65M Oracle acquisition, and how it can boost your win rate by 30% or more—guaranteed.
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Top 5 Ways to Stop Striking Out on Your Sales Forecasts
- September 21, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The Boston Red Sox are whiffing 62% of their bases-loaded, no-outs chances—way worse than the MLB’s 15% fail rate. Sound like your sales pipeline? Discover why high-probability deals fizzle out and how to fix it with five key strategies, from robust qualifying to predictive scorecards.
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The 20-Year Legacy of Baseline Selling: Why Its Sales Process Still Wins in 2025
- July 1, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Celebrating 20 years of Baseline Selling, this article dives into why its staged, buyer-focused sales process remains the most complete framework for predictable, repeatable sales success. From its baseball-inspired origins to its seamless CRM integration with Membrain, discover why Baseline Selling outshines other methodologies.
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Why Salespeople Skip the Sales Process (And How It’s Killing Your Revenue)
- May 19, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Planting a fruit tree requires five simple steps in the right order—mess it up, and you’re left with dirt. Sales is no different, yet only 34% of salespeople follow a structured process. From mistaking methodologies for processes to winging it, discover why salespeople ditch the roadmap and how a proper sales process can boost revenue by 20%.
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Most Salespeople are Underdogs Like the Boston Red Sox
- October 13, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If your company is not the brand leader, market leader, or price leader; if you have a complex sale, a story to tell, a new technology, a new brand, a new product, a much higher price or a much tougher sale, then you are an underdog too.