sales process

  • The Top 8 Requirements for Becoming a Great Salesperson

    • January 14, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Do you remember the moment you became a Salesperson?  Not a presenter, Not an order taker, but a true consultative sales professional?

    Here are some guidelines to identify the moment you turned professional. 

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  • Dave Kurlan’s 10 Surefire New Years Resolutions For All Salespeople

    • January 3, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’ve compiled a list of resolutions that all salespeople should make and follow.  Some will likely surprise you but they are all necessary to become more successful.  Enjoy the 10 most important elements for New Year’s Resolutions That All Salespeople Must Make.  Here we go!

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  • Why are Half of All Sales Reps Still Missing Quota in a Booming US Economy?

    • December 10, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Between 2010 and 2016, and soaring revenue during 2017-2018, the percentage of reps making quota has not only remained flat, but the percentage hasn’t even returned to pre 2008 rates.  This article attempts to explain why.

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  • Would Henry Ford be Able to Sell Cars Today?

    • November 29, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What would Henry Ford think if he were alive today?  I’m thinking that he would ask, “What the hell happened to my motor car and what are all these SUV’s, crossovers, smart cars, hybrids and electric cars?  And what are all these pictures, icons, buttons, knobs and dials for?”  I think he would also say, “So let me get this straight.  You need to pay for a government issued license and pass an exam to operate it?  You need to register the motor car with the government and pay for that too?  You need to buy insurance before you can use it?  You have to pay an excise tax to your city or town to maintain ownership? And they sell for how much?  Holy shit!  What did they do to my Model T?  I innovated a car, not a home on wheels!” 

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  • How I Realized That Selling is Just a Bunch of Crap

    • October 31, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Those are strong words and probably quite surprising coming out of my mouth but I’ll explain it all.  Earlier this week I was leading another Sales Leadership Intensive and during a break it came to me.  

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  • Golden Nuggets from the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study

    • October 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I had a chance to review the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study and extracted some fascinating data.  I thought it might be interesting to take their data, overlay some of Objective Management Group’s (OMG) data, and see what we can take away from that.

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  • The Top 12 Factors that Cause Delayed Closings and What to Do About Them

    • September 25, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Delays, delays, delays.  Nearly every coaching call with a salesperson is about a delayed closing.  Nearly every coaching call with a sales manager is about a salesperson with a delayed closing.  Everyone wants to know what to do about the delayed closing but that’s the wrong question.  Everyone should be asking these two questions instead.

    Was it really delayed or were we overly optimistic about if and when this opportunity would close?
    What steps can we take to prevent delayed closings?

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  • Latest Data Shows Most Salespeople Would be Fired or Arrested if they Worked in Accounting

    • July 2, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In this article, we will look to determine whether there is a correlation between sales percentile, sales pipeline and sales performance.  And as has been the case with the last ten articles like this, the data is sure to surprise.

    OMG includes a pipeline analysis as part of every Sales Force evaluation it conducts. We ask each salesperson 19 questions about four late-stage, proposal-ready/closable opportunities currently in their pipeline.  In the table below, the percentage of salespeople who actually had 4 late-stage opportunities on which they could report are sorted by Sales Percentile.

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  • Sales Playbook and CRM Problems – What the Data Tells Us

    • June 6, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    That leads me to the growing demand for Sales Playbooks.  Companies want them, get excited about them, believe they are important, pay tens of thousands of dollars for them, and invest many hours collaborating for a successful final document.  You won’t believe the wasteful things that happen next!

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  • New Data Shows How Relationships and the Need to be Liked Impact Sales Performance

    • June 4, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In my most recent article, I shared data that showed a chain reaction would occur when salespeople have more than one major weakness in their Sales DNA and the second major weakness is their tendency to become emotional. As a trigger, the first major weakness causes the salesperson to become emotional, at which time their listening skills become compromised.

    That article can be found here and as of this writing nearly 6 dozen LinkedIn subscribers have contributed some very insightful comments here.  Their comments inspired me to dig even further and look into the correlation between relationship building that salespeople do and their need to be liked.  In this study, even I was surprised by what I found!

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