sales training
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Top 3 Reasons Why Sales Training Doesn’t Change Your Salespeople
- November 17, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I get asked this question a lot: “We’ve tried sales training before and it didn’t really change anything. Why didn’t it work?”
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Most Salespeople Are Wrong about the Concept of Being Willing to Walk
- October 31, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
At some point in most training programs we talk about being willing to walk away. In addition to being part of a Kurlan led sales training program, the willingness to walk away is a major focus of any training program on negotiation as well. But most people in sales don’t really understand the concept of being willing to walk, how it plays out, and what to do when you get there. I would love to share my thoughts on this below.
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What Sales Managers Do That Make Them So Ineffective
- July 26, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Earlier this week I wrote an article on why so many sales managers are so bad. In today’s article, I’ll share what makes them so ineffective. The easiest way to explain this is to start with a baseball analogy.
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Top 5 Conditions For B2B Prospects to Buy Your Services
- March 15, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So first a little baseball and then the sales analogy. A fastball hit me square in the knee today.
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What’s Missing from the Report That Says Sales Training Doesn’t Make Reps Better?
- January 6, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I could not believe my eyes when I read this report. It was during the break between Christmas and New Years, so perhaps I wasn’t as sharp as would be during a regular business day. Maybe I missed something. So I reread the report and the words amazed me even further. The report claimed that salespeople don’t improve their skills as a result of sales training. Really? Let’s take a look.
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Price Quotes and the Inability of Salespeople to Sell Value
- October 19, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week, I was training a sales force to sell value – an absolutely revolutionary concept – when the unthinkable happened, not once, but twice in the same training. As incredible as it was to me, it clearly illustrates why it is so darn hard for companies to get their salespeople to sell value.
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Keys to Selecting a Sales Training Company
- July 2, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I can always tell when a Sales VP is worried about these things because they’ll start asking all of the wrong questions. They’ll want to know about agendas, content, slides, handouts, style, approach and timing. Instead they should be asking about results, solutions, and what they need to do to make it work!
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Closing Sales, Process, Hauntings, Training & More
- March 23, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today I will explore the least-read articles I have ever written. That’s right. The least read. It’s very fashionable – and a best practice – to continue promoting the most-read, most-liked, most-favorited, most-shared, most-tweeted and most-commented articles; but I don’t think anyone has gathered up their worst work and said, “Look at this!” It’s actually not my worst writing.
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How Can a Simple Zero Derail a Sale or Deal?
- January 7, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today, I was coaching a very talented salesperson, one who is even better at getting deals closed. Yesterday, he closed a large deal when late in the day, and completely out of nowhere, he got the dreaded “we changed our mind” email. This is his story.
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Solitaire and Modern Sales Training – What Should it Cover and Include?
- October 6, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve been playing one of those Solitaire games on my iPad and I can routinely score in the neighborhood of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with my best time being just under 2 minutes. I thought I was doing pretty well until I realized that my wife routinely scores between 1 minute and 1:20 seconds with her best scores (not score) being under 1 minute. She has scored as low as 48 seconds.
If not for my wife, I would have thought I was a real pro at Solitaire!
This is exactly how many CEO’s, Presidents and Sales VP’s view their sales forces. Without anything or anyone with whom to compare, they form their judgements on sales effectiveness in a vacuum. I routinely hear things like, “We have a custom sales process.”, and “We’ve been working on consultative selling.” Yet, after a sales force evaluation has been completed, those same companies are routinely found to have been lagging, not leading, in those areas.
When it comes to providing sales training for your sales force, what exactly, should modern training include?