sales performance

  • How to Easily Motivate and Incentivize Sales Pipeline Building

    • June 20, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
    motivated-by-music

    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
    music

    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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  • What If Pay Equity Comes to Sales Teams?

    • February 28, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When pay equity comes to sales teams, top performers will be the group that is most affected.  While it is too early to know whether their incomes will be reduced, they will be compensated equally with the worst performers on the team. If you are a top performer, and you are no longer earning significantly more than the worst performers in the company, what would you do?  Here are some possibilities:

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  • “Spirited” Has So Much in Common with Most Salespeople

    • November 29, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Only 13% of all salespeople take a consultative approach to selling and almost none of them can be found in the bottom 50% – the group that fails to meet quota each year.  A coincidence? On the other end of the spectrum, the top 10% of all salespeople are 4300% more likely to have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength!

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  • 5 Reasons Sales Teams Underperform Like My Old Wiper Blades

    • November 17, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I speak with a lot of CEOs and Sales Leaders from companies whose sales teams are underperforming.  One thing they seem to have in common is the mileage problem.  When I ask how long the sales team has been underperforming, it is usually the equivalent of 60,000 miles.  It’s not a new problem, the signs have been there for YEARS but something recently changed to the extent that they couldn’t tolerate it any longer.  The sales team’s performance was finally presenting a threat (safety) whereby one or more of revenue, earnings, sustainability, personal income, stock prices, turnover, market share, morale and more were at risk.

    What causes executives to wait so long?  Here are five potential reasons:

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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!

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  • How to Prepare for the Coming Sales Team Super Storm

    • September 22, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My first reaction was that this must have been something from 2016 – right before the boom that lasted until the pandemic slammed the economy to the ground.  Or, from the 4th quarter of 2020, when we expected the economy to come roaring back.  But it simply can’t be something that is remotely relevant to what we are about to experience.  Here’s what we know, and how that will impact companies and their sales teams in 2022.

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  • How to Use Buckets to Improve Sales Performance and Coaching

    • February 19, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Buckets are important, especially when you’re attempting to coach up a salesperson or even improve your own sales performance.  If you don’t have the OMG evaluation at your fingertips and can’t lookup the scores in 21 Sales Core Competencies, or see which attributes need to be improved, you’ll need to think in terms of buckets.

    When salespeople are struggling, there are five primary buckets to consider:

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  • Data Shows That Your Sales Team is No Different Than Your Lawn

    • November 20, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    But why do sales teams continue to fail, year after year, regardless of industry, and in every economy?  Why don’t the numbers improve?  Why don’t more salespeople jump from C’s to B’s?  From B’s to A’s?  From D’s to C’s?  The answers – and there are plenty – are evasive.  But let’s try!

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  • The Problem With Having Crappy Sales Managers

    • November 11, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sales Managers underperform at a mind boggling level.  Let me show you the degree to which most sales managers are unqualified.

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