Dave Kurlan
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The Sales Force and Beyond – Customer Impressions
- January 18, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Lesson for National: They may have the simplest VIP rental car pick up program on Planet Earth but if the people suck, so does the program! At least it sucks compared with Avis and Hertz (in my opinion).
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Death Defying Sales Calls – Don’t Get Run Off the Road
- January 13, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have a healthy degree of skepticism, push back and challenge everything you hear, especially when it’s what you wanted to hear, to avoid a case of happy ears.
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How Much Crap Do You Put Up With From Your Sales Force?
- January 12, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As much as this title resonates for most of you, your salespeople will probably ask, “Are you kidding me? It should say, ‘How much crap do we have to put up with from Management’?”
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The Will to Succeed, Sell Anything, Top Sales Books, and Coaching
- January 10, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was just wondering – do you or your salespeople play the lottery? Do you or any of your salespeople have an inheritance coming? These are two things that you might not think anything of but they can cause salespeople to lack the consistency and effort that are so important to sales success. Salespeople maintain the mindset that financial success and independence, and the freedom to have what they want, when they want it, regardless of cost, must be earned and not handed to them. Big base salaries and commissions from residual business can have an even greater negative effect except they are even more immediate threats to productivity than lotteries and inheritances!
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Did Your Salespeople Choose to Be in Sales?
- January 5, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Even if you reviewed as many resumes as I do each week you might not notice this: Most sales candidates did not have a sales position as their first job after college. Most started as something else and then, out of the blue, they were in sales, sales management, marketing, or business development. I always get suspicious when somewhere back in time a candidate went from Purchasing to Sales Management and never sold along the way…
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Top 10 Steps to Initiate Salespeople to Their Roles
- January 4, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This is exactly how to initiate salespeople, whether they are new to your company, new to their role, or new to sales. Don’t vary at all from the steps above. More importantly, don’t assume that because they have sold for 10 years they’ll know what to do or be able to do it effectively. Follow the steps!
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Top 3 Sales Lessons from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”
- December 20, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During a first sales call, suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, “This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this.” And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, “We’ll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we’ve made.” And still a third might say, “In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and timeline.”
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How Christmas Gift Giving Mirrors the Ideal Sales Process
- December 15, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you understand that, then why do so many executives and salespeople, from all industries, still insist that the first thing they must do with a new prospect is present? Even the word “present” suggests waiting for the perfect time.
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Top 10 Outcomes That Should Come from Sales Coaching
- December 14, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When you coach a salesperson, which words should you hear that would tell you the session was effective?
Not “Thanks” or “OK”.
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What The Salesperson Saw (or Didn’t) – A Question about Sales Calls
- December 10, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s one thing to have eyes, but our salespeople need to use them too. Typically, their mouths are moving so fast and so often, and the sound of their own voice is so compelling (to them), that their eyes are neutralized. This is similar to what happens on a long drive when you suddenly realize you drove 10 miles past your exit and have no idea how you got that far without noticing.
What do your salespeople miss on their sales calls?