Understanding the Sales Force
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Sales Pros! 10 Things You Must Do Before Leaving for Summer Vacation
- July 1, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Are you going to the beach? On a sail? On a tour? To another country? To a lodge? To a resort? Regardless of your destination or purpose, make sure you bring some good books, disconnect from your email and social networks, and actually use the time to recharge. That’s good old common sense. But if you really want to kick some ass when you return from vacation, you’ll want to make sure you do these important things too:
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Are We Wasting Our Time on LinkedIn?
- June 29, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
LinkedIn is a tool that I use more than some and less than others. As busy as I am, I’m unable to spend an hour on LinkedIn each day, but I do visit daily. I am engaged. And I always wonder if it’s a complete waste of time. In this article, I’ll share the highlights and lowlights from my informal LinkedIn effectiveness analysis and you may be very surprised with my conclusion.
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12 Proven Sales Hacks to Increase Sales
- June 25, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It seems that these days, things are changing faster than we can recognize. Cosby is finally out of the news, but the Marathon Bomber is back in. The terrible winter weather is in our rear view mirror, but now we are dealing with droughts and tornadoes! And in our world, Sales 2.0, a term we haven’t heard in a while, is making the rounds again. In today’s article, we’ll talk about the sales improvements that readers are most interested in.
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Apply Jack Reacher to a Modern Sales Approach
- June 23, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
While reading Lee Child’s Reacher book, “Personal”, I saw a huge connection between how the Jack Reacher character survives and succeeds on all of his highs: high-risk, high-stakes, high anxiety missions; and how a successful salesperson survives and succeeds in the sales equivalent of a Jack Reacher story.
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What You Get When You Accelerate Sucky Sales
- June 22, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell.com says, “Be careful not to accelerate suck!”. That quote appeared today on the High Velocity Sales Blog, where Chad Burmeister wrote a great article about outbound on demand. You should read that article. It can change your world! Anyway, I wanted to elaborate on that quote as it applies to expanding your sales force.
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Why Some Great Salespeople Produce and Others Don’t
- June 18, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was talking with someone who wanted his farmers – salespeople who are assigned to a single enterprise account – to hunt. His idea is to take existing salespeople and have them bring on new accounts instead of hiring additional salespeople to do that. There are certainly pros and cons to that, but do you think it will work? What would it take? What are the chances? If it works, can it be replicated? Let’s take an inside look at the factors, chances and reasons, shall we?
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How to Finally Get Sales Selection Right
- June 16, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Before I share some crucial sales selection tips, I need to begin with some baseball. My apologies to all of my cricket and soccer obsessed readers.
My team, the Boston Red Sox, just lost their seventh consecutive game. They are in last place and heading for their third last place finish in the past four years. The outlier year was 2013, when they won the World Series. I think there was far less talent on that championship team than on this year’s edition, but the 2013 team had a rallying cry (Boston Strong) and everyone overachieved. You can’t count on everyone overachieving each year, so in lieu of that, as Jim Collins would say, you must have the right people in the right seats.
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Why You Must Hire Salespeople Right Now
- June 4, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Forbes conducted a survey of Fortune 500 CEO’s and 82% of them said they would be hiring more people within 2 years. Why should that be important to you?
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How You Can Increase Sales During the Summer
- June 3, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It is concert season and salespeople tend to drag out their own old and inappropriate beliefs about selling in the summer.
For one, they work much less. I understand the need for a summer vacation, but why is the summer any different from when they take their winter vacation? They return from their winter vacation and work really hard, but for some reason, before and after the summer vacation, they hardly work. That’s lazy!
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Connecting the Dots on Sales Management
- May 28, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do you remember the morning that you couldn’t find your keys, but they were right there on the counter? Or the time that you couldn’t find an article of clothing, but it was hanging right there in your closet the entire time you were looking for it? Or the time you couldn’t find your car in the airport parking garage? And yes, it was right where you parked it. Sometimes, things are right in front of you and you don’t notice them! And that brings us to this sales management topic.