Understanding the Sales Force
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Salespeople – Beyond Listening Skills
- January 24, 2006
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Help your salespeople learn to do this and they will double or even triple their sales.
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Why Isn’t This Sales Candidate Hirable?
- January 17, 2006
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When a client runs a pre-employment assessment on a candidate and the results are unfavorable, the client will sometimes push back and fight the unfavorable finding. Why? They already fell in love with the candidate and, rather than wanting the truth about the candidate, they prefer validation of their feelings. How does one avoid this outcome? All candidates should be assessed prior to being interviewed so that the employer has objective intelligence for the interview.
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Salespeople are Like Children
- December 13, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Your salespeople learn that they should ask questions to learn about the needs, issues, applications and problems that their prospects might have. And some of them actually ask one or two of those questions – like they get it – and then they start to present their product, service or company. Just like our son, they can think about the other person for only so long before they revert to thinking about what’s important to them or comfortable for them.
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How Are Assessments Used
- November 15, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Since I am an expert on assessments, I get asked to assess the assessments that are out there on a regular basis. Most assessments are quite good as long as they are used as intended. However, users, motivated by marketing and salespeople, are often lured into using an otherwise good assessment in an inappropriate way. This compromises the value of the assessment that now fails to provide the in-depth information, answers and actions that a more appropriate tool would give.
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Two Salespeople That Aren’t Performing
- October 26, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A company president had three salespeople who were performing well and two that weren’t. He felt that he didn’t have an adequate method for forecasting future revenue. His request? ‘Can you evaluate the two non-performers and buy a more effective pipeline tool?’ A facilitator would say ‘yes’ to that. Take the easy money. Don’t rock the boat. But does that serve the client?
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Money Motivated Salespeople
- October 22, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The other day a client asked me about a salesperson about whom the assessment indicated wasn’t money motivated. He went on to tell me how often this salesperson tells him he needs to make more money and wants a larger base. I explained that this is more a case of ‘money need’ rather than money motivation. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two is:
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Some People Aren’t Motivated by Money
- October 22, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One sales manager indicated that he had a salesperson who wasn’t motivated by money but was motivated by providing great customer service and making people happy. I told him that I was certain that he could not possibly be describing his best salesperson and, after a moment of consideration, he completely agreed.
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When Sales Expectations Aren’t Communicated
- October 17, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The president of an architectural design firm wanted to know how to hold the professionals in his firm more accountable for bringing in business. While this is not an unusual question, one has to dig a little deeper to uncover the real issue.
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Black Hole – In the Dark Over Assessments and their Applications
- October 4, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There is a tremendous amount to learn about any assessment and most are not motivated to learn everything there is to know about an assessment, never mind 5, 10, or 20 assessments. Here are some of the many things to consider:
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Disbelief – Weak Salesperson
- October 2, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I received another call from a CEO who couldn’t believe that his salesperson was as weak as the assessment indicated and the assessment did unveil a very weak salesperson. The CEO contended that Billy was doing quite well.
We collect some additional data from salespeople for just these scenarios.