Understanding the Sales Force

  • 5 Sales Management Best Practices
    • April 5, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Yesterday, I received Selling Power Magazine’s online sales management newsletter and, as usual, they failed to distinguish between sales and sales management. One of the features was the 5 Sales Management Best Practices. I’m always interested when this is

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  • Spamelot and Selling
    • April 1, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Last night my wife and I saw Spamelot, a very funny and entertaining show. Spamelot does very well what so many salespeople fail to do. In the first minute, the cast reaches out, grabs you by the throat, gets your

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  • Entrepreneurship
    • March 29, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    George Gendron, former Editor-in-Chief of Inc. Magazine and currently, the Entrepreneur in Residence at Clark University’s School of Business, invited me to speak to his undergraduate class last week. This was fun, compared to the audiences of executives I usually

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  • When Salespeople are Struggling
    • March 21, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Some of your salespeople are struggling. Nothing new. What should you do? Where should you look?

    Usually, when sales aren’t coming in, the problem is not one of ineffective closing as much as it is ineffective prospecting. There are three

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  • Great New Book on Selling – The Inside Story
    • March 15, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Special Offer – Order Baseline Selling TODAY, from Amazon.com!

    I thought I would share some background about the book.

    The Rub – My research and statistics from evaluating 250,000 salespeople revealed that 74% of all salespeople are ineffective.

    The

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  • What Salespeople Can Learn From Dogs
    • March 12, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We called her Bloomie the Dog. She was in my office every day for the last 14 years except on those occasions when she was in the hospital for a ruptured intestine, abscess on the brain, lymphoma, old dog syndrome,

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  • Sales Candidate Doesn’t Qualify
    • March 10, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I see this one happen way too often: Based on the results of the assessment, the sales candidate is not recommended for failure to meet the client’s criteria. I repeat; the client’s criteria. What does the client do? They suggest

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  • The Sales Call Gone Bad
    • March 9, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When most salespeople talk about calls gone bad they’re often talking about sales horror stories, a trend developed by Dan Seidman at Monster Sales News. I believe that any sales call that fails to move forward (next step, base

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  • Losing Customers – Who is to Blame?
    • March 8, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Most companies experience losing important customers or clients at some point in time and statistics can certainly support a claim that you can’t keep every customer happy. But it’s that justification that usually hides the real problem, a problem that

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  • Closing the Sale
    • March 4, 2006
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you ask most salespeople what their biggest challenge is in the area of closing, most will provide answers like:

    • price
    • timing
    • not the decision maker
    • lack of interest
    • fear of rejection
    • not a priority
    • competition
    • not a need
    • put
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