Understanding the Sales Force

  • Coaches Benefit from Tryouts, Sales Managers Fail Using Gut Instinct
    • April 27, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    baseball tryout

    Sports teams hold tryouts which serve as auditions. Coaches know what to look for.  Sales Managers use resumes, interviews, and hire on gut instinct. 

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  • The Powerful Similarity Between Bad Baseball Teams and Most Sales Teams
    • April 17, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Baseball and Revenue

    Stop using revenue to rank your salespeople or to conclude that your salespeople with the most revenue are good salespeople.  It’s fiction.  It’s BS.  It’s misinformation.  It will lead you to make bad decisions.  Revenue represents what customers spend with you.  Sales effectiveness is the measure of a salesperson’s ability to grow revenue by bringing in new business.

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  • The Philosophy of the Red Sox and Gallop Will Lead to Increased Revenue
    • March 30, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    opening day

    Leadership believed they were very good at doing these things. However, everything is relative. The key question is, good compared to who? 

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  • Snowstorm & Weather Apps Explain Why 75% of Sales Forecasts are Wrong
    • March 16, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Understanding the Sales Force

    As a Nor’Easter barreled across Central Massachusetts today, a few interesting storm-related happenings were analogous to some sales-related occurrences. This article will explore two weather-related analogies:

    It’s in 3D – Dinger the Dog and his choice of Doors
    The Magic of Weather Apps

    I’ve written about Dinger, our six-year-old Golden Doodle, several times.  The most popular article was when I claimed and proved that Dinger’s listening skills were better than those of salespeople. 

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  • The Magic of a Well-Liked CRM Application Adds Value to Your Sales Stack
    • March 15, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force

    Magicians who specialize in card tricks are famous for their one-liner: Pick a card, any card!

    That’s the way it is with CRM.  There are probably several dozen CRM providers and while SalesForce.com is the company that dwarfs all others, the reality is more complicated.

    Pick a CRM application, any CRM application.

    The last ten clients I asked answered this way.

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  • Top 10 Keys to Determining and Improving Your Ideal Win Rate
    • March 7, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Best Top 10 Lists, Understanding the Sales Force

    What kind of car should you drive?

    Answering that question with anything other than, “It depends,” is irresponsible because there are so many variables.  Choosing a car depends on budget, family size, how much stuff you load into your car, the length of your drives, the logo/ego influence, fit and function, ergonomics, appearance, perceived value, reliability, cost to drive it (gas/electric/mileage), and so much more.

    If that makes senses, why do companies struggle when I am unable to instantly tell them what their win-rate or closing percentage should be?

    There are so many the variables that can influence your sales win-rate and here are my top ten keys to win rates:

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  • What If Pay Equity Comes to Sales Teams?
    • February 28, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When pay equity comes to sales teams, top performers will be the group that is most affected.  While it is too early to know whether their incomes will be reduced, they will be compensated equally with the worst performers on the team. If you are a top performer, and you are no longer earning significantly more than the worst performers in the company, what would you do?  Here are some possibilities:

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  • 4 Types of Sales Positions That Can Never Be Replaced by AI
    • February 22, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We’re seeing ChatGPT’s ability to create human-like articles, essays, poems, notes and messages.

    I just asked ChatGPT to write a short poem on the death of selling.  Here’s what it generated.

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  • These 6 Keys and New Data Help Your Sales Team Outperform The Rest
    • February 16, 2023
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force

    They found that top performers make 54% more switches – the back and forth in conversations – than everyone else and 78% more in their presentations.  The presentations made by top sales performers are not monologues!

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