Closing Sales
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The Sales Process Milestone You Can’t Get Wrong
- May 9, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Every year, I observe that May 11th marks the day when tree leaves reach full size, a natural milestone that mirrors the critical timing in sales. Just as leaves may appear early or late due to weather, prospects reach buying decisions at varying times. Salespeople often assume the end of their pitch signals the moment to close, but prospects may not be ready—or may have been ready earlier. Missing these cues can lead to lost sales. A well-structured sales process like Baseline Selling accounts for this, but unexpected delays or accelerated decisions can still disrupt timing. Mastering the art of aligning with a.Assembly Instructions prospect’s decision-making moment is key to closing deals effectively.
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10 Rules for Successful Sales Training and Revenue Growth
- March 17, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The truth is that even the most media-rich, entertaining, engaging, memorable sales training can’t come close to holding people’s attention when compared to a series like “24.”
That’s why it is imperative that companies follow my top 10 rules for a successful sales training outcomes:
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The Requirements for Achieving Sales Excellence
- January 3, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For most people, the New Year is a forward-looking time time for goal setting, planning, and resolutions. Nothing wrong with that. But as someone who likes breaking rules and pushing the envelope, I’m starting the New Year by looking back to January of 2024.
Last January, my first article included the introduction of my new Sales Grid. Check it out if you’re not familiar with it because it is a blueprint for quota-busting sales success. Then watch the short video that follows and read the article on how to achieve sales excellence.
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Homicide Detective Makes Best Case for Sales Process
- March 21, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The author admits that until he conducted his “cold-case investigation” of the New Testament, he was an atheist who always followed the evidence to find the truth. Similarly, a lot of prospects are also non-believers – not necessarily in Jesus – in your product or service. As I read and learned about the author’s methods for uncovering truth, or proof, I felt that salespeople could learn a lot about proof of concept, presenting facts, backing up claims, return on investment, and offering credible testimonials. That’s not nearly the analogy I’m going to make.
Wallace shared a story in the Forward about the time he was shot by a criminal who was on parole, and was not allowed to have a firearm. Up until the moment of the shooting, Wallace believed that a bullet-proof vest would stop a bullet. In the moment of the shooting, he believed in the bullet proof vest. At that moment his belief changed from “belief that” to “belief in.” That was the analogy he wished to apply to the gospels. He wondered if he could find the evidence to replace faith (belief that the miracles occurred) with proof (belief in both Jesus and the miracles).
That also happens to be my analogy from the book. Most salespeople believe that a sales process can help them succeed while the very best salespeople believe in their sales process.
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Sales Process for the Anti-Sales Process Crowd
- January 31, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can look at sales process any way you want but if what you want are more consistent, predictable results, in a framework that supports sales coaching, then you want a customized, formal, milestone-centric, customer-focused sales process and scorecard!
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How Driving Down the Highway Will Help You Close More Sales
- January 22, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If there is one thing that most salespeople are guilty of, it is voluntarily ending the conversation with more unanswered questions than answered questions. It doesn’t need to be that way either!
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The Philosophy of a Pitching Coach Will Improve Your Sales Team
- April 4, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I find ideas and material for this Blog everywhere, especially when I’m not looking for them. Yesterday I received a daily email from a Paul Reddick, a baseball coach who was drumming up some business for his baseball institute. It resonated – not for its baseball coaching – but as sales coaching. Here’s what it said:
If your coach is talking about any of the pitching flaws that you see listed above…
Run… Run Fast!
That Coach is working on “flaws” that will have no impact on your pitching. He is working on symptoms… not the illness! He is trying to fix things that are happening as a byproduct of incorrect movement early in your delivery. If you get the first second of your delivery right, almost all of these flaws get fixed instantly.
Do you know how this applies to sales?
I’ll explain exactly how it applies and I promise you will be surprised! Click here to read last year’s fun article comparing pitcher’s fielding practice (PFP) to role-playing in sales.
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When Salespeople Can’t Close Closable Business – The Bob Chronicles Part 7
- February 14, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what did Bob get himself into this time?
It’s a huge opportunity that Bob has been nurturing for years and several months ago his prospect, a top executive that has the influence and authority to make a decision, confided that he would like to find a way to do business and not only that, have this be part of his legacy.
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Salespeople Will Close 50% More Business By Changing This One Thing They Do!
- August 5, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
At Objective Management Group (OMG), one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies we measure and report on also tends to confuse salespeople, is the cause of frequent pushback, but has thirty-five years of cumulative science to support the finding and our conclusions. Allow me to introduce you the competency called Supportive BuyCycleTM.
BuyCycleTM represents how salespeople go about the process of making a major purchase and there is a 100% correlation between how they buy and the behavior they accept from their prospects. For example:
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The Bob Chronicles Part 5 – Bob Can’t Win This Argument Over a Sales Core Competency
- June 22, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
OMG has assessed more than 2 million salespeople and measures their sales capabilities in 21 Sales Core Competencies. While some might not like their scores, most salespeople agree with our findings because they are extremely accurate. However, there is one competency of the 21 that causes salespeople to dig in, disagree, and push back. Today I will explain the competency and share yesterday’s conversation with Bob. For new readers, and those who don’t remember, Bob tends to get himself into trouble and is representative of all weak salespeople.