sales excellence
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7-Steps to Achieve Sales Team Excellence
- October 9, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Any company and/or executive can initiate a sales transformation, but there is one dealbreaker that can cause a sales transformation initiative to fail. But you have to see it through. You must be visible. You must lead by example. You must be engaged. You must show how important this is. You must show your commitment.
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Expectations, Revisions, and Excuses on the Sales Team
- September 9, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Nothing frustrates a CEO more than when the monthly numbers are not met. The government is doing it too. We saw the goal posts being moved almost daily during the pandemic. The news tells us what to expect for the monthly, quarterly and annual reports on Cost of Living, Inflation, Interest Rates, Illegal Immigration, and Jobs. Then the “actual” numbers are reported, followed by huge revisions to what was reported a few months later.
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Using Baseball to Select and Hire Salespeople
- May 20, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This article has a set of three distinct analogies comparing baseball to sales so if you don’t want to hear about the baseball side of the analogy, you’ll probably want to exit the article. If you stay, you’ll be asking yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Analogy #1 – Filling Seats
Let’s start with what a sales team would call a termination. It doesn’t matter whether it is voluntary or involuntary, when it occurs, the salesperson must be replaced.
In baseball, whether a player is injured, traded, released, or leaves via free agency, he must be replaced. There are three options:
If the team chooses to replace him organically, they call up a major league-ready player from their top minor league (AAA) team and voila – he is replaced.
If they trade for a replacement, they determine who they want and what it will take in both major league and minor league talent to acquire him. They might negotiate over the specific players and when they agree, a deal gets done and they have their replacement.
If they elect to sign a free agent, it usually comes down to money and if the player and team can agree to the terms, they have what is usually an expensive replacement.Let’s discuss the preparation, work and diligence the organization would have done prior to promoting a minor leaguer to the majors. They scouted him in high school and/or college. They oversaw his development in Rookie League ball, then through low and high Single A ball, then Double A, and finally Triple A. The player has typically been in their system from as little as two years to as much as eight years. They have extensive first-hand knowledge of the player’s work ethic, defensive capabilities and liabilities, offensive capabilities and liabilities, mental toughness, and have projected how he will perform in the major leagues. It’s not significantly different with players they might trade for, or free agents they might sign, because their scouts have seen those players and their team has played against those players.
Compare having to replace a baseball player to what happens when you must replace a salesperson. You don’t have anyone to “call up” or promote and there are two options:
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Was the Easter Sermon About Salespeople?
- April 1, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As someone who for thirty-eight years has led a sales consultancy specializing in sales, sales management and sales leadership training, I can easily say the exact same things about people “who belong” to the sales profession. They should be attending at least weekly training. They should be practicing their profession as we practice our faith. They should be reading about sales. But most in the sales profession are content to sit on the sidelines, and attend training only when the company forces them to. More and more, we are seeing:
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Sales Process for the Anti-Sales Process Crowd
- January 31, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can look at sales process any way you want but if what you want are more consistent, predictable results, in a framework that supports sales coaching, then you want a customized, formal, milestone-centric, customer-focused sales process and scorecard!
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Rainforests and Torn ACL’s Provide Insight into Effective Selling
- July 17, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Only Dave Kurlan can take a torn ACL, rainforests and climate change and use those as analogies for sales effectiveness!
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Resistant Salespeople Can Prevent Consistent, Strong Sales Results
- June 27, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
CEOs and Sales Leaders whose salespeople aren’t responding need to understand that their veteran salespeople are the same as my son when he was thirteen.
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How to Easily Motivate and Incentivize Sales Pipeline Building
- June 20, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Music motivates me to do what I otherwise don’t really want to do. But while everyone is different, I’ve seen music work as a motivator for others too.
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Use Music to Understand the 12 Criteria Prospects Use to Buy from Salespeople
- June 12, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday, while watching our son play in a summer collegiate baseball game, I missed a step and tumbled all the way down the bleachers. Isn’t that a great analogy for what happens when you miss, or skip a crucial step in the sales process? More than half of all salespeople are missing and skipping important milestones in the sales process each and every day and their egos get more bruised from failing to close those opportunities than my body got bruised from my not so thrilling adventure to the ground.
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The Irony of Free Passes for Under Performing Salespeople
- October 21, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A typical US sales team consists of 15 people, including a Sales VP, 2 Regional Sales Managers, and 12 salespeople. Of course, there are exponentially larger and smaller sales teams, but this is the version that we most frequently encounter. This team will have no more than 3 performing salespeople, another 3 who sometimes hit their numbers, and 6 who chronically under-perform.
Let’s assume that the salespeople who are ranked 10-12 are not just under-performers, but pathetically ineffective salespeople. At the end of the year, they receive their annual review – the equivalent of an arrest and release – and are back on the street to underperform for another year, making the company both both the victim and the enabler. This is insanity!