Understanding the Sales Force

  • Sales Coaching – The Big Differentiator

    • December 2, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    What’s the difference between great sales coaching and good sales coaching?

    Do you talk with your salespeople about strategy, goals, outcomes and potential obstacles? Do you check with them to make sure they agree? That’s good sales coaching.

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  • Free Salesforce Grader Tool

    • December 1, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    How would you like to be able to rate the effectiveness of your sales force?

    How would you like to be able to rate their effectiveness and get your score instantly?

    How would you like to know the 22 keys to sales force effectiveness and excellence?

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  • A Career in Sales is No Place for a….

    • November 25, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I must be losing my vision because regardless of the number of times I looked, I still didn’t see Sales on the list.  So here we are and the profession is still so disrespected that they don’t even want to expose high school kids to the opportunity to earn more than most of the careers listed above.

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  • Timid Sales Managers Fearful of Confronting Salespeople

    • November 21, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Now how do you feel about ultimatums?

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  • Ultimatums for the Salesforce – Do They Work?

    • November 19, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Suppose you deliver an ultimatum to a salesperson…

    Suppose you deliver it to the entire sales force…

    How would you expect them to react?

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  • Is Your Selling Model Effective? Know your Salesforce’s ABC’s

    • November 17, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Every company, with or without a salesforce, has a selling model.  I know of one company whose model is “we don’t believe in sales”. It works for them, but it won’t work for many others.

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  • What Really Creates Sales Excellence?

    • November 13, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you are like me, you’re receiving email invitations to attend webinars at the rate of 10 to 20 per day.  And you’re getting the exact same invitations every single day from the exact same companies.  And some of them promise the solution to all of your sales problems – sales excellence solutions.  Take a look at the invitations I received today alone!

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  • Stimulate the Economy – Get Your Salespeople Selling!

    • November 12, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I was interviewed on two different radio shows today.  Jim Lobaito interviewed me about the impact that the economy is having on sales on his weekly business show and David Leopold interviewed me for his live Internet radio show, Let’s Talk Small Business.

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  • Are Your Salespeople Selling Price Like Sam’s Club or Value Like Nordstrom’s?

    • November 12, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So what does this say about the state of the economy and more specifically, about discounting and trying to win business based on price?

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  • Improve Sales Performance with More Effective Pipeline Management

    • November 10, 2008
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Related to pipeline, I hate inappropriate blog commenting. That’s when people seek out a blog only to use it as an excuse to write about what they’re promoting on their site. It’s the other form of SPAM. The way it manifests itself on this blog is when someone targets one of my posts on closing or pipeline management and then adds their comment about how you can solve this problem by using lead analytics software or search engine optimization. I’m all for tools of this type and I love Hubspot’s lead analytics and SEO but let’s be real.  SEO and on line analytics help to generate leads; they have as much to do with closing effectiveness as Michael Jordan has credentials for baseball’s Hall of Fame! Over achievers, using their sales competencies, create improved sales performance.

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