Sales Accountability

  • Top 20 Reasons Salespeople Miss Quota and How to Fix it
    • June 12, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Best Top 10 Lists, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    70% of Quota: Win for the Salesperson celebrating a good year vs Epic Fail for the CEO and company revenue goals on a baseball diamond illustrating lowered quotas versus real sales leadership

    People have been babying me since my bypass — and sales leaders are babying their teams the same way by lowering quotas. Here are the Top 20 Reasons Salespeople Miss Quota and exactly how to fix it instead of making excuses. No more false wins. Time to run the bases the right way.

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  • 25 Factors Indicative of a Strong Sales Culture
    • May 11, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Music and Sales, Sales Compensation, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    Three key sales performance gauges showing rising Sales, Gross Profit, and Win Rate with upward green arrows — indicators of a strong sales culture

    Executives love the idea of a sales transformation until it’s time to actually change. Here are 25 proven factors that separate a truly strong sales culture from one that’s stuck making excuses.

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  • 10 Questions Every CEO Must Answer to Increase Revenue Today
    • April 17, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Best Top 10 Lists, Sales Compensation, Understanding the Sales Force
    A confident mid-50s CEO in a navy suit sits at a modern executive desk in a bright corner office, leaning forward with a focused, slightly skeptical expression as he looks directly at the viewer. On the desk are a laptop displaying sales pipeline charts and a notepad with handwritten notes including “Why 72% miss quota?”, creating a professional and thought-provoking business scene.

    Google Search Console revealed what CEOs are actually searching for. It’s not closing tricks or AI hype — it’s the foundational issues holding revenue back. Here are 10 questions every CEO must answer to drive real growth today.

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  • How to Eliminate the Need for Sales Motivation, Accountability and More!
    • April 10, 2017
    • Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What if I told you there was a way to completely eliminate the need to manage the pipeline, motivate, recruit and hold salespeople accountable?  There is and I’m going to share it with you!

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  • How Better Accountability Causes Sales Performance to Increase
    • January 4, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sure, having goals is important, but having them in writing, with an achieve by date and a plan is exponentially more likely to have an actionable outcome than only having goals.  And if you really want results, accountability is to goals as the accelerator is to the automobile.  They both cause immediate action.  Here’s what I mean.

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  • Can Salespeople Really Double Their Revenue by Solving This One Challenge?
    • October 28, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force

    While there are several sales analogies I could point to for this turn of events, there is one in particular that is crucial if your company sells more than one product or service.

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  • Tighter Sales Metrics at New Year Leads to Improved Success
    • January 7, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    That leads to your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) or metrics which drive revenue.  If you collect these now via a daily huddle, that’s terrific; let’s tighten them up.  If you don’t currently have your sales team calling in every morning for 10 minutes, you’re missing out on a critical piece of accountability, team-building and intelligence.

    How can you tighten up your metrics?

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  • Controversial “Best Time” For Salespeople To Fill Their Pipeline
    • June 21, 2012
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The obvious answer is to make sure that they fill the pipeline when it begins to empty or is getting close to being empty, right?  

    Wrong.

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  • Red Sox and the Sales Force – Winning and Losing is Contagious
    • September 21, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Of course you can coach, train and develop SOME of the wannabes, but only if they are Committed, Motivated wannabes, that you can hold accountable.

    Either way, winning is contagious  and you must do everything in your power to create a winning environment where success is expected and anything less is not acceptable.

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  • Bad Things That Happen When You Leave it Up to Your Salespeople
    • April 27, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Here are the 10 most common things that your salespeople will do when they aren’t managed effectively, or, in many cases, when they are only managed on an as needed basis.

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