sales process
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Tech Buyer Explains Why He Has No Use for Salespeople – Must Read
- July 11, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I managed to develop a case of poison ivy that is so bad it is making my blood boil. Earlier this year I wrote an article explaining why more salespeople suck than ever before. (You’ll need to read that article for the rest of this article to make any sense.) Last week, a reader provided a comment that also made my blood boil and I wrote a response to it. I think you’ll get as riled up over his comment as I did and I hope you’ll love my response, but first, read that article, return here and read his comment which I have included below, and then continue reading for my reply. You won’t be sorry!
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Sales Process – It’s All about the Shoes, Silly
- June 28, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve written dozens of articles on Sales Process an you can read many of them right here. If you pay attention, you can even see how my thinking has changed over the last 10 years. While I have never wavered on the importance of sales process, I have modified my thinking on why it’s so important, what it must consist of, how it should work, and how it should be integrated into CRM.
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4 Great Sales Lessons from a Notre Dame Commencement Ceremony
- May 17, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We were fortunate to be in the audience for the 2016 Notre Dame Commencement where Vice President Joe Biden, former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired 4-Star General, Martin Dempsey were among the speakers. While all were good, Biden had one great takeaway, and the General shared 3 tips and an action step. I believe that these are all share-worthy and apply to sales and sales leadership as well, and perhaps even better than they apply to those graduating from universities.
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The 3 Most Important Questions about Sales Process and My Answers
- May 9, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
With sales process finally getting the necessary attention, we should turn our attention to the three related issues that need to be addressed. Which sales process should you select, and into which CRM application should it be integrated and how can it be customized?
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Can Free Sales Content Send You Down a Dangerous Path?
- May 2, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I downloaded a Sales Process Cheat Sheet which promised a standardized playbook and a simple, easy-to-follow sales methodology to help managers coach their inside sales reps into following a proven, standardized process from discovery to close. Was there value? It was a joint promotion from Hubspot and InsideSales.com. – maybe you received the same offer in your inbox. Was it any good? Was it a process? Was it a playbook? Was it a methodology?
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Sure Fire Way to Know Which Sales Opportunities are the Best Sales Opportunities
- February 24, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I just love it when cool gets cooler and I’m not talking about the winter weather in New England. About a month ago, I wrote this article on Targeting and shared a generic model for scoring opportunities. George Bronten and Henrik Oquist, CEO and COO of Membrain, took note and developed the concept as a new feature for their world-class CRM application, Membrain. You have to see how we integrated this new feature into the Baseline Selling version of Membrain. In the image below, you can see that we added a scoreboard milestone at two stages of the sales process.
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Must Read – This Email Proves How Poorly the Bottom 74% of Salespeople Perform
- February 17, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Ken is one of my longtime readers, a former client, and last week he sent this note expressing his frustrations as a buyer of services. I’ll add my comments and conclusions at the end of his note.
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Sales Performance – Stop Worrying About the Words You Say
- January 25, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When coaching, most sales managers change the words their salespeople use. “That’s not how I would say it – try this instead!” While there are a couple of key moments in the sales process where the words do actually matter, for 98% of the sales process, it’s about listening and asking appropriate questions, following the process, achieving key milestones, following the company’s general strategy and using appropriate sales tactics. It’s almost never about the actual words. For example, last week I coached a salesperson who was using all of the words the other salespeople on the team were instructed to use – but with vastly different results. I think you’ll find the coaching interesting.
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What True Story Does Your Sales Pipeline Tell You about Your Business?
- November 5, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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Sales Slumps – What Causes Them and How to Fix Them
- September 28, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During the course of a baseball season, both hitters and pitchers fall into slumps. In basketball, players slump with their outside shots and from the foul line. Football Quarterbacks go into passing slumps. Golf and Tennis pros have swing slumps. Tiger has been in a slump since Thanksgiving of 2009! (I’m sure there must be some kind of a slump that Soccer players can fall victim to, but I don’t know enough about soccer to weigh in.) With slumps being so common, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that salespeople get into slumps too. In this article, we’ll explore what causes salespeople to get into slumps, what their slumps look like, and how can they be fixed.