Dave Kurlan
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Sales Slumps – What Causes Them and How to Fix Them
- September 28, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
During the course of a baseball season, both hitters and pitchers fall into slumps. In basketball, players slump with their outside shots and from the foul line. Football Quarterbacks go into passing slumps. Golf and Tennis pros have swing slumps. Tiger has been in a slump since Thanksgiving of 2009! (I’m sure there must be some kind of a slump that Soccer players can fall victim to, but I don’t know enough about soccer to weigh in.) With slumps being so common, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that salespeople get into slumps too. In this article, we’ll explore what causes salespeople to get into slumps, what their slumps look like, and how can they be fixed.
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The Secret to Coaching Salespeople and Why It’s So Scary
- September 21, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I learned that the way in which sales leaders react to the exact same material differs exponentially in accordance with the time we have to discuss it.
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Did You Know That There is a Season for Hiring Salespeople?
- September 17, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
Did you know that when it comes to hiring salespeople, there are also seasonal trends we know to be true ?
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A Guaranteed Fix for Inaccurate Sales Forecasts
- September 15, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Understanding the Sales Force
Are your expectations completely unrealistic when you attempt to forecast sales for the month or quarter? For most companies, inaccurate forecasts are the norm and expectations for accuracy are insane. But that’s when companies rely on CRM applications with any of the following 10 challenges:
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Driving, Asking Questions, Inside Sales, and Sales Process with a Twist
- September 8, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
“You’ve been driving a car since you were a teenager, but your cars have always had an automatic transmission and you’ve always driven on standard roads. Now we will ask you to drive a much larger car, drive it at faster speeds, on an obstacle course, with people in your way. Oh, and one more thing – for the first time, you’ll be driving a six-speed manual transmission. You might be afraid to take your foot off the clutch and put the car into first gear because, if you’re not careful, you might kill those people standing in front of your car!
“That’s how salespeople sometimes feel when they need to be liked and are expected to ask their prospects some really difficult questions. Salespeople think someone will be killed – and they worry that it might be them!”
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Increase Sales by 20% – Guide to Creating an Effective Sales Process
- September 3, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week I received this inquiry form from our “Ask a Sales Expert” page:
Someone from my team always responds to these inquiries and it was my turn. I want to share the correspondence, but it’s even more important to read the accompanying explanation, interpretation, warning and lesson. If I can help you to understand this and get your sales process correct, the data suggests that there is a corresponding 20% increase to sales!
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Sales Hacks and How to Improve Your Lead Follow Up Conversions
- August 31, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I have previously written about how important it is to quickly and consistently follow up on inbound leads. This article from September of 2013 included two great infographics that demonstrate lead conversion statistics. However, Russ, from FindAccountingSoftware.com, emailed me a link to this case study on 63,256 outbound calls that has much more specific, useful information.
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Why Inbound and Inside Sales Experts Think Sales Process is Dead Too
- August 18, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Junk Sales Science Debunked, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
I love and use some of their tools and services and recommend them to clients too. But the key word here is tools. They support and enhance selling. Tools don’t replace selling.
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The Science of Sales Selection vs. the Marketing of Modern Selling
- August 14, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
I started with more than 100 sales-specific findings and narrowed them down to the 18 findings and scores that clearly differentiated their tops from their bottoms. A mistake made by behavioral scientists and sellers of personality and behavioral styles assessments is that they only look at top performers and identify common traits. They fail to realize that the bottom performers have the same personality traits and behavioral styles as the top performers and none of those traits or styles are predictive of sales performance.
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How the Right Questions Can Make up for Lack of Sales Experience
- August 11, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
Magic, racing and expectations are major factors in sales. We will discuss the role of each and how salespeople can be more consistent when they better understand those 3 factors and learn to manage them.
