Consultative Selling
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Another HBR Article on Sales Leaves Me with Mixed Feelings
- July 20, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was asked to comment on an article called The End of Solution Selling, which appeared in Harvard Business Review. The article was generally right on, but it also included several things that irritated me enough to question them and the article.
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Warning to Sales-Focused Companies Wanting to Stay Relevant
- May 30, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Mike Myatt wrote an article for Forbes‘ online site called, To Increase Revenue Stop Selling. This article has been very heavily viewed and commented. I don’t agree with most of Mike’s suggestions, but in his defense, he is not a sales expert, sales writer, sales manager, sales leader or salesperson. He simply doesn’t like being pitched or sold to and urges salespeople (he doesn’t want them to sell or be called that) to simply let him buy – when he wants, where he wants, how he wants, from whom he wants, and for prices he is comfortable paying. Sounds like retail, doesn’t it?
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Do Chain Reactions Like This Really Occur When Selling?
- May 8, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Mary always succeeded in finding new opportunities, but her weaknesses, especially her Need for Approval, Discomfort Talking About Money, and Tendency to Become Emotionally Involved, would usually interfere with her ability to gain traction and close the sale. During the past year, she has improved enough so that she is not only finding new business, but closing it too. But she isn’t out of the woods yet.
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Challenges Don’t Always Require a Complete Sales Force Makeover
- April 19, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Many of the Sales Force Evaluations provided by Objective Management Group (OMG) reveal that the company’s problems run so deep that they will require a complete sales force makeover. However, it doesn’t always have to be that way. Sometimes, a single word, question or statement will change how every prospect responds.
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Does Your Sales Force Look Like This?
- April 12, 2012
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I shared just a few of the charts, graphs and tables, which we include in a sales force evaluation when we are answering common, but difficult, business questions such as:
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Get Your Sales Force to Perform Magic and Make Sales Appear!
- January 5, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We don’t talk about it much but sales has a lot of magic to it.
We disguise the magic and call it art, but when people are unable to describe how it actually works it must be magic. Want an example?
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Sales Traction – The Key to Measuring the #1 Sales Competency
- November 16, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the KPI’s I introduced in my Moneyball article two months ago was Traction, the ratio of suspects that become prospects. Using the Baseline Selling process, that is also the ratio of opportunities that move from 1st base to 2nd base. Translating that one more time, it is the number of 1st meetings that move to “we have a real opportunity here”.
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Revealing Study of Salespeople Makes News at HBR
- October 5, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This article has my first reaction to the Challenger Sale after news of the book first appeared in HBR back in 2011.
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Effective Sales Models
- September 15, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I wrote this article about the difference between sales process and sales methodology. In addition to those two sales infrastructure components, companies should have a sales model. How is the model different from the other two key components of an effective sales organization?
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Is Moving From Vendor Up the Ladder Scary to Sales Executives?
- June 20, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is actually the third article on this subject. Last week I posted this article which contains a link to the original article.