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How to Use Buckets to Improve Sales Performance and Coaching
- February 19, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Buckets are important, especially when you’re attempting to coach up a salesperson or even improve your own sales performance. If you don’t have the OMG evaluation at your fingertips and can’t lookup the scores in 21 Sales Core Competencies, or see which attributes need to be improved, you’ll need to think in terms of buckets.
When salespeople are struggling, there are five primary buckets to consider:
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Sales Managers Must Make Sure That This Never Happens
- September 26, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You are driving down the highway and see an enormous truck in your side mirror. The truck is moving very fast – twice your speed – and closing in quickly. You continue to look in the mirror and because of the way your side mirror is shaped, it appears that the closer the truck gets, the more likely it seems that the truck will simply run right over you. You accelerate a little, keeping watch on that mirror and then it happens. You miss the sharp bend in the road and drive off the cliff.
This short story is the real-world equivalent to something which often occurs with your salespeople.
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Sales Coaching Lessons from the Baseball Files
- May 24, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This sequence of analysis and tweaking works in exactly the same way when coaching salespeople. You should be able to immediately identify what went wrong, when it went wrong, how it went wrong and demonstrate how to prevent and fix it. The last two steps must take place through role-play. Are you doing that effectively?
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The Impact of Coaching Salespeople and Sales Managers
- October 7, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I thought back to my childhood and thought about the the coaching I had then, and later in life, and the impact it had on my success.
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10 Steps for your Sales Force to Survive and Thrive in The Recession
- January 5, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Bernie is the President of a company that had experienced flat sales for the three strong economic years leading up to the recession. He had been looking for a VP of sales for two years but hadn’t found the right candidate or failed to pull the trigger.
He attended an event where he heard me speak and asked me to contact him. He asked for my advice and I recommended that if he was serious about finding the ideal VP, then he should:
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Highly Successful Salespeople Can’t Remember What They Say
- August 18, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We were in an internal meeting last week and Frank Belzer said something really profound. Chris Mott asked him to repeat it and he said, “I have no idea what I just said.”
Light Bulb.
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How to Find the Compelling Reasons for Seth Godin’s Intangibles
- August 15, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Seth Godin’s recent column on Intangibles was great. As a matter of fact, I haven’t disagreed in more than two years with anything he has written about selling. Today he provided many examples – great examples – of how your intangibles create value. I’d like to explain how your salespeople can uncover these, and other reasons why prospects would pay more to do business with you.
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Salespeople are Like Children – The Series
- August 14, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I have written many articles based on the insights of our son, most when he was between the ages of 3-7. Each article has profound lessons and they’re fun to read. Readers have enjoyed these particular articles so much, and found the lessons to be so good, that I compiled this series called Salespeople are Like Children. As you might expect, some of these articles are my all-time favorites too.
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Getting Customers to Flock Back to Your Salespeople
- August 11, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last night at dinner, my 77 year-old father showed us the obituary he had saved from when his father died. Abe Kurlan died in 1968 at the age of 68. Since I pick up the most subtle of patterns, the first thing that ran through my head was that I might make it to 86! It also got me thinking about what Abe did for a living. He was a car salesman back in the day when before he could sell you a car he had to teach you how to drive one!
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Data Points Tell a Story – Prospects Buy Happy Endings
- August 9, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Our son, who is now six, doesn’t know the the full extent of what I do for a living. Rather than tell him that I’m a sales force development expert and explain the many facets of that, he knows that I have meetings (talk with people on the phone and in my office), that I do work (stuff on the computer), that I’m the boss of my office (12 people report up to me) and that I sometimes conduct training (show salespeople how to sell). I haven’t attempted to explain evaluating, compensation, incentives, metrics, recruiting, leadership development, executive coaching, consulting, strategies, systems or processes.