sales leadership
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Future Red Sox Stars to Sales MVPs: Why One-on-One Coaching Wins
- July 9, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The Red Sox turned young players into stars with one-on-one coaching, and your sales team can too. Learn why group coaching falls short and how personalized coaching can boost revenue by up to 42%. Ready to hit a sales home run?
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Fire Your Top Salesperson: The Red Sox Lesson for Better Sales Teams
- June 18, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Can firing your top salesperson transform your team? The Boston Red Sox’s bold trade of Rafael Devers reveals how letting go of a problem performer can lead to big wins. Discover the sales team lesson in this surprising move.
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5 Keys to Account Management Success; 10 Keys to a Strong Customer Partnership
- June 13, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A new sales rep’s 60-second flop at an optometrist’s office exposes critical account management mistakes. From unprofessional attire to zero relationship-building, her visit was a disaster. Discover the 5 keys to account management and 10 keys to strong partnerships—like trust, respect, and communication—to make your sales team unstoppable
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Is Complacency to Blame for Missed Quotas? A Deep Dive into Sales Performance Challenges
- May 30, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Is Complacency to Blame for Missed Quotas? A Deep Dive into Sales Performance Challenges
Is complacency why 57% of reps miss quota? Data from 2.5 million salespeople shows 64% of the bottom 50% lack the Will to Sell. From poor compensation to lack of motivation and discipline, here’s what’s holding them back—and how to fix it.
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Why Salespeople Skip the Sales Process (And How It’s Killing Your Revenue)
- May 19, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Planting a fruit tree requires five simple steps in the right order—mess it up, and you’re left with dirt. Sales is no different, yet only 34% of salespeople follow a structured process. From mistaking methodologies for processes to winging it, discover why salespeople ditch the roadmap and how a proper sales process can boost revenue by 20%.
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My Latest Sales Epiphany From Watching Playoff Baseball
- October 20, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Uncategorized, Understanding the Sales Force
And that’s when it hit me as if I was hit in the face by a 95 MPH fastball.
My fears are exclusive to the Red Sox and not to any other team – even if I am rooting for the other team! This is huge! And because this is my brain, this is actually about sales, not baseball!
Is it fair to believe that a Sales Leader wants his salesperson to succeed with a big, important sales opportunity as much as I would want the Red Sox relief pitcher to succeed in a big, important game?
If your answer is yes, we have a problem.
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The Biblical Sales Force Part 2 – On Boarding and Coaching Salespeople
- October 14, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As I wrote in September, I’m reading the Bible from beginning to end for the first time. In my first article using an analogy from the Bible, I wrote about scaling, hiring and firing salespeople, based on what I read in Genesis. Today’s article is about on boarding and coaching salespeople, and is an analogy from Exodus.
Early in Exodus, we are introduced to Moses, whose people have been slaves to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hundreds of years. God appears to Moses and commands him to approach Pharaoh and persuade him to release the Israelites so they can freely worship their God. Moses lacks confidence in his ability to articulate the request, and questions God’s direction. He wonders if there might be someone better to handle this important assignment.
God had to build Moses’ confidence, and properly prepare him for the conversation he will have with Pharaoh. This is the equivalent to pre-call strategizing, one of several methods for coaching salespeople. God needed to provide Moses with talking points sufficient to give him gravitas with Pharaoh, so he provided Moses the God-like ability to turn his brother Aaron’s staff into a snake. We accomplish the same thing when we prepare a salesperson with powerful messaging and talking points.
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Baby Fish and New Salespeople Experience the Same Fate
- August 1, 2024
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If your turnover is less than 10% you have a turnover problem – not enough turnover! If your turnover is between 10-20% you’re good. If it’s greater than 20% it’s worth exploring what is contributing to your high turnover rate and how to fix it. Sometimes it’s because you are hiring the wrong salespeople. Sometimes it’s lack of effective onboarding, lack of effective sales training, lack of coaching, lack of accountability, or lack of leadership.
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The Data: What Percentage of Salespeople are Really Coachable?
- April 3, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While coaching is private, training is more public as it usually takes place in front of others. Salespeople who have the greatest incentive to change are those who are the most trainable. Those salespeople have high scores in Desire for additional sales success and Commitment to additional sales success. When a salesperson scores below 60 on Desire and/or Commitment, you aren’t likely to see much of a change in their effectiveness or performance. If they are already generating acceptable results and more of the same would be OK, then it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, if their performance is lacking, and more of the same would not be acceptable, then a salesperson lacking Desire/Commitment would be a great candidate for replacement.
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Wouldn’t Sales Call Play-by-Play Analyses be Fun?
- January 27, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most sales managers protect their salespeople instead of pushing them to improve. Most companies set budgets that formulaically increase year-over-year budgets by just 3.5%. The sales recruiting process and selection criteria at most companies are horrible. Most sales training is product-focused instead of sales development. Most salespeople are not consistently or effectively coached. Most senior sales leaders are indifferent about doing anything about those things.