sales leadership
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Verne Harnish’s Rant and 3 Sales Leadership Issues
- February 25, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The one newsletter that I never fail to read each week, rain, 7 feet of snow, sub-zero temperatures, or shine, is Verne Harnish’s Weekly Insights (subscribe here). If you are not familiar with Verne (The Growth Guy), he wrote Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and his latest book, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make it and the Rest Don’t, is another must-read best seller.
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Keys to Improved Sales Performance – Part 4 of 4
- September 5, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you are like most folks, you were away for at least part of the summer, took as many long weekends as you could, and worked fewer hours on the days you actually did work. As part of getting the work done, you deleted as many emails as you could where a reply wasn’t required and visited fewer websites and blogs.
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How to Run a Killer Sales Incentive Contest
- February 6, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Incentive programs are still very powerful as long as you make sure they don’t last for more than 90 days. There are other factors that can make the difference between an effective and ineffective program. Consider the three most important concepts: Everyone must believe that they can win the contest, there should be more than 1 winner, and the rewards must be motivating enough for them to go into overdrive to win one.
Let’s begin with how you get them to believe they can win.
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World Series, Super Bowl and the Sales Force – The Rallying Cry
- February 5, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With selling being such an individual sport, can any of this character and culture stuff be applied to a sales force? Let’s discuss it and figure it out.
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Top 10 Ways Salespeople are Selling in the Dark
- November 13, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Did you happen to see the movie Gravity?
Early in the movie, the two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, lose communications with Houston. From that point on, they don’t stop talking to Houston, they don’t stop reporting in and they don’t change protocol. What they do change, is they add a phrase to the beginning of each message, “Houston, in the dark…”
They are moving blindly, without direction, without feedback, without certainty. They are in the dark. That’s exactly how most salespeople go through each day, through each sales call and meeting, and through each sales cycle. They are in the dark.
It’s most obvious when salespeople don’t know:
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Why CEOs/Presidents Tolerate Ineffective Sales Management
- October 7, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Lack of overall sales performance is an easily recognized problem. A savvy President or CEO may correctly identify the symptoms: inaccurate forecasts, a lack of new opportunities, new salespeople failing to ramp-up quickly enough, delayed closings, and complacency. However, they usually fail to understand that these issues are not sales issues, but sales management issues.
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Presidents & CEO’s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective!
- October 2, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A title like, “Presidents & CEO’s: 4 Out of 5 Sales Managers Are Ineffective”, will cause some Sales Directors, Sales VP’s and Sales Managers to click and read the article. That’s OK, but a spoiler warning: if you feel threatened by hearing the truth about yourself or your sales team, or would be uncomfortable sharing the truth about you or your team with the President or CEO, you should probably exit this article right now.
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Has the Death of Selling Finally Arrived?
- September 23, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
eople in inbound marketing would have you believe that if you create the right content, get people to raise their hands, complete a form, and request something, then inbound marketers, formerly known as inside salespeople, can take it from there. If you are selling something in great demand (iPhone 5), really inexpensive (monthly subscription of $20 or less), significantly lower-priced than your competition (by 20% or more), or that people must have (wireless service), then you can easily replace salespeople with marketers.
However, there are 15 scenarios where you do need salespeople if you are selling something that:
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Which Industries Need the Most Help to Get Sales to the Next Level?
- August 15, 2013
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force