Understanding the Sales Force
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Retooling the Sales Force
- May 4, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The executive team of a company whose sales force we recently evaluated wanted to ‘retool’ the sales force. Their salespeople were comfortable selling into one of the three markets on which they needed a presence, but not the other two markets. The executive team wanted to know whether it was easier to hire new salespeople or to develop the existing salespeople.
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Be Still My Pipeline
- May 1, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We evaluated a sales force this week that had pipeline problems. Most companies have pipeline problems; they simply lack the awareness to recognize how serious those problems are. Of even more concern is how long it takes to fix a faulty pipeline.
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Creating a Sales Culture
- April 28, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what are the challenges a company will face when management decides to create a more proactive sales culture?
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Is He or Isn’t He?
- April 27, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A company that wanted to evaluate their sales organization was having a not so uncommon identity crisis: their sales managers don’t have any salespeople reporting to them. What’s wrong with that you ask? Five things:
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The Passing of Time
- April 25, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I noticed that one of the sales forces we evaluated this week had a lot of salespeople that were fairly new – either to selling or to the company – which, by itself, is not particularly alarming. However, the sales manager was investing only 10% of his time on coaching and accountability.
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Let’s start with the Sales Managers
- April 23, 2005
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I spoke this week with a leader who wanted to assess his sales managers for potential development. He felt it would be better to start with sales managers – that’s how they always proceed with development. Who was it that started the misguided belief that you have to start with managers?