Understanding the Sales Force

  • Playing Dumb Is a Dumb Sales Strategy — Until You Know When to Stop
    • September 24, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Split-screen illustration: a professor at a podium saying “I am an expert,” and a salesperson at a conference table saying “I have a question.”

    Salespeople love to talk about playing dumb. They don’t know when to stop, and they don’t know how to do it so it shows expertise. Pedro didn’t throw the changeup until the fastball was established. That’s the skill.

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  • Why Salespeople Adopted the Deck and Abandoned the Phone
    • September 21, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Music and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Vintage slide carousel and laptop presentation on a conference table with an unused phone between them

    Salespeople upgraded the slides and hid behind email. State Farm left a working jingle alone for fifty years. The phone conversation should have gotten the same treatment. Only 17% are strong at the upgrade that actually matters: a consultative sales conversation.

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  • Why Sales Managers Don’t Coach: Two Out of 500 Said Yes
    • September 14, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    the sales version of baseball's instant replay for salespeople

    We took away the time excuse, the listening excuse, and the cost excuse. Sales leaders at about 500 companies still wouldn’t coach. Two said yes. That’s a quarter of one percent.

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  • The Resume Still Looks Great. The Sales Hire Still Fails.
    • September 10, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Assessments Compared, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
    Infographic titled The Resume Paradox showing that 46% of new hires fail within 18 months and 89% of those failures are not about technical skill, with AI resume statistics and the traits a resume cannot see.

    46% of new hires fail within 18 months, and 89% of those failures are not about technical skill. A resume can’t see Will to Sell, Sales DNA, or selling competencies — which is why the most credentialed sales candidate is so often the wrong hire.

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  • The Deadbolt Test: What Looks Fine on Your Sales Team From Three Feet Away
    • September 7, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Compensation, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    Two salespeople in business attire try to kick open a wooden office door with a prominent brass deadbolt that does not line up with the strike plate.

    From three feet away, most sales teams look locked. Get up close and the deadbolt doesn’t line up. Ten places the door is theater, and a simple test for how easy it would be to kick in.

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  • Inbound Ruined Outbound — But It’s Not Too Late to Join the Evolution
    • September 4, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Dave Origins, Understanding the Sales Force
    A boy holding greeting cards knocks on a 1960s front door while a rotary wall phone and a snowy black-and-white television sit inside the house.

    Phones evolved. TVs evolved. Selling got inbound, tools, and a buyer-journey myth — and most salespeople used all three as a hall pass to skip the conversation. Only 17% can still do the thing that works.

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  • There Is No Sales Equity: Why Sales Training Methods Don’t Produce the Same Results
    • September 1, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    Split illustration comparing Food Equity, where every dinner path leads to the same meal, with No Sales Equity, where eight sales development methods produce very different salesperson results.

    Dinner has a dozen paths and one meal. That’s Food Equity. Developing a sales team looks the same and isn’t. There is no Sales Equity — the method you pick does not produce the same outcome. Here’s why, and which mix actually changes results.

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  • Why You Should Stop Trying to Be the Star of the Sales Call
    • August 22, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Music and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    various bass players and drummers are like various types of salespeople

    A simple music analogy reveals why the best salespeople don’t try to be the star of the call — and what the alternative looks like.

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  • How Prospects Use EMCOM to Push Away Salespeople
    • August 17, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Modern U.S. Navy destroyer running completely dark at night under a starry sky with faint radar arcs, illustrating EMCOM radio silence used by prospects to hide buying urgency from salespeople

    Prospects with real urgency often go radio silent — just like a warship running EMCOM — to keep salespeople from discovering the problem that would actually make them buy. Here’s why that resistance exists and how the best salespeople manage it.

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