sales competencies
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The Requirements for Achieving Sales Excellence
- January 3, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For most people, the New Year is a forward-looking time time for goal setting, planning, and resolutions. Nothing wrong with that. But as someone who likes breaking rules and pushing the envelope, I’m starting the New Year by looking back to January of 2024.
Last January, my first article included the introduction of my new Sales Grid. Check it out if you’re not familiar with it because it is a blueprint for quota-busting sales success. Then watch the short video that follows and read the article on how to achieve sales excellence.
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Magazine Discredits Their “Born to Sell” Article with Junk Science
- October 25, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
They identified five areas where those with genetic traits outperform others. They claim that those are:
Tailor Your Approach
Conduct a Sales Debrief
Refine Your Skills Through Practice and Experimentation
Use Data Analytics to Inform Your Decision Making
Invest in Ongoing Training and MentorshipOther than number 2 (of course we’re singling out #2 in an article that’s full of crap!), the other four are not sales or marketing specific but are simply common-sense goals for anyone interested in self-improvement.
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Is Fred a Top Salesperson or a Horrible Imposter?
- July 2, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Fred’s sales manager sees both sides. He told me that Fred is an imposter and the OMG evaluation perfectly described his sales capabilities. So yes, Fred is both a top salesperson and a horrible imposter.
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Onboarding and 11 Reasons Why Salespeople are Failing
- May 8, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it comes to sales onboarding, nearly half were not onboarded in their first sales job and 23% more received no sales training relative to how the company’s products/services should be sold. If you were one of those new salespeople, it will come as no surprise but for the rest, and especially those of us who invested in our careers, became students of selling or like me, entered the field of sales development, it’s malpractice practiced at scale by millions of companies. They believe that salespeople should just know what they’re supposed to do and figure it out. How hard can it be? Ha!
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Combining Goal Setting with Sales Competencies
- January 4, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Allow me to introduce the first draft of the first innovation of 2024 from Kurlan & Associates: The Sales Goals Grid, which incorporates most of the 21 Sales Core Competencies. It is a great visual for every salesperson, regardless of what they sell, who they sell for, who they sell to, or the length of their sales cycle. You can even adapt it to your own needs.
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How to Always Respond Appropriately to Your Prospect
- December 21, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When a salesperson experiences momentary panic, or forgets what to do or how to do it, that call, Zoom, or in-person meeting is over. It could even spell the end of that opportunity. I’ll explain how to Always Respond Appropriately to Your Prospect
Three ingredients influence events like these:
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The Difference Between Sales Competencies, Sales Capabilities and Sales Outcomes
- February 14, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you watched Super Bowl 57, you observed two teams that simply refused to give up or give in. Sometimes, that’s the feeling I get when I’m writing articles and I have solid data on my side, while dozens of competing authors just won’t stop their constant barrage of articles using junk science, anecdotal evidence, and alternate facts.
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This Company’s Best Salesperson was 2500% Stronger Than Their Worst
- February 1, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s been four months since the baseball season ended but college baseball begins in less than 4 weeks and it will be fun to watch our son play for his college team (while freezing our asses off!). It’s also been a while since the last time I shared a top/bottom analysis but I completed one this week that I had to share.
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Siri Can’t Help You Close the Deal but Doing These Three Things Can!
- August 9, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sometimes Siri doesn’t actively listen and decides to send you somewhere different from where you asked her to navigate; a different city or town and/or a place that doesn’t sound remotely close to what you asked for. She gets in the way.
So what do you do when Siri isn’t cooperating? Do you give up and wing it? Do you try again? Do you stop navigating with Siri and switch to Google, Waze or your built-in system? Do you persist until you get what you need?
That’s exactly what salespeople are supposed to do. Get creative, be persistent and find a way to reach the decision maker. You do it with Siri, so why don’t you do it when someone in the company won’t introduce you to the decision maker, when they won’t give you the decision maker’s name or when they don’t cooperate? Why do so many salespeople give up and plow forward with the contact they are speaking with right now?
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The Correlation Between Milestones, Sales Process and Sales Success
- October 26, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Back in the early 90’s, in the very early days of OMG, only 9% of all salespeople had and/or followed a sales process. While that has improved dramatically in the last 30 years, to 45%, it is still way too low. Check out these findings.