Client Testimonials

I had the pleasure of working with Dennis Connelly over the past year in various capacities. Dennis is one of the finest Executive Performance Coaches I have ever partnered with. He led an excellent onsite workshop for our entire sales team this past summer, gaining their trust and confidence in just two short days. He continues to work tirelessly in developing their coaching and sales skills. With his training and support, we surpassed our sales goals for 2023, and Q124 is off to an exceptional start. Lastly, Dennis is currently my Executive Coach. He blends his professional experience with the right touch of academics to help me work through complex issues while helping me focus on the things that matter as a senior leader. If you are in need of an executive coach, a sales coach, or a talented facilitator, Dennis Connelly is your go-to person.

I am a member of the Kurlan fan club. Dave has built a tremendous body of work and a large following because of the durability and reliability of his approaches. Dave has helped us grow. We are winning twice as much business today with fewer salespeople and 25 percent less proposal dollars quoted at higher margins. We are turning away work at about 10% because we are above our capacity and we have the strongest backlog that we have had in several years. All of this with one of our primary markets still being impaired by COVID and our costs facing sizable inflation headwinds. Dave’s training has helped us grow confidence, sell better and sell more with less effort and resource burden.

Thank You! Just thought I’d let you know I started a new role recently and it was all thanks to the training that I took over the few months on the basic and advanced courses. After going through them a few times (I have to admit I love the Ghostbusters references to Compelling Reasons) they’ve given me a new lease of life. Just wanted to say thanks for all your help over the past few months – much appreciated!

Enjoying and embracing. I am really enjoying and embracing the training. I love the sessions and they are really helping me. Thanks!

Great stuff! Thank you for these sessions. I enjoyed the modules, roles plays and learned some great techniques. I took away some valuable lessons as well as great reminders and I look forward to future courses.

Much Better Than Prior Training. In my previous organization, I engaged with and brought in a sales methodology training, and have seen many. Baseline Selling is, without question, the most engaging, energetic, and relevant. Your articulation of SOB and how something seemingly innocuous can have significant impact is brilliant and really resonated with me and will change how I coach team members. Thanks again for the training and I’m excited for where this can go!

Gold. The visual display of skipping discovery and differentiating steps…gold! Thank you for helping us get better.

Very helpful. The thing that had the biggest impact on me is bringing the discussion back to 1st base. Prospects often ask for pricing, demos, or other things when there has not been enough discussion around identifying problems we can solve, developing compelling reasons to buy, and quantifying the solution. The process of lowering resistance and getting permission will help me a lot in this area.

Landed Two Whales! Visited my $7.2 mill/yr prospect today and got the signature and I have verbal commitment for a $12-18 million/yr prospect that will sign early next week! What a week. Thank you!

Very informative, especially around topics of recruiting and Top 5 points of great sales management. Excellent!

Excellent presentation very impressed.

Dave, in the ~100 days since our last coaching session, I exceeded my quota by 130%, led the team in ARR earnings, and have accepted a promotion to lead the team. I attribute these successes wholly to your prospecting coaching, day-to-day usage of Baseline Selling, and SalesMind while traveling to prospect meetings. Thank you for providing the content that makes it possible for a regular guy like me to sell like a stud.

I wanted to thank you for the excellent job you did at the Executive Luncheon last Wednesday. Your presentation definitely allowed me to open my eyes and mind into different aspects of selling, recruiting, and even see weaknesses as well as strengths in myself.

I wanted to thank you for the excellent job you did at the Executive Luncheon last Wednesday. Your presentation definitely allowed me to open my I have NEVER heard such a well-thought out, logical, concise, yet all-inclusive, presentation of how to organize, hire, train, and manage a sales team in my 24+ year career. I definitely want to meet with you and to act on what I’ve heard.

That was really useful information and he was clearly one of the best presenters I ever heard.

Just a quick note to let you know how much I enjoyed your presentation at the CEO luncheon…I was impressed with the way you were able to relate to the audience and I know it was very well received.

Dave – my management team and I thoroughly enjoyed your talk yesterday at the Des Moines Country Club.

Great, good balance of examples and theory. Very interactive with audience!

This is the kind of stuff I came to hear at this conference!!

This is the first (out of 5) seminar that I can actually use.

Excellent speaker with great new ideas. Enthusiastic, motivating, highly knowledgeable – really enjoyed this program! Saw him last year – this year he’s even better.

Definitely a return speaker! Great ideas – revolutionary approach. Really made me think.

The best by far! Out-classed all other speakers in value delivered.

Best info on salespeople I have been to. Super. All sales driven companies should hire Dave.

Exceptional tips, unique insights into a difficult process.

Good content and presentation. Highly recommended.

Best Presentation next to Sears CEO Keynote Address!

This session uncovered a whole new way of looking at and evaluating my sales force which will be of enormous benefit in my company

Just wanted to drop you a note of appreciation for the Sales Coaching sessions you and Sarah conducted with me. Your level of expertise was very impressive throughout our conversations and your insights into the interpersonal dynamics of the sales calling process were always right on target. As someone who had never made “cold calls” before and was pretty uncomfortable with the prospect, your help and encouragement was invaluable in building my skills and confidence. I know that several of the CEO’s who attended my Information Events and eventually became members in my Vistage Group were influenced directly by the techniques and methods that you recommended. I would encourage other Chairs to take advantage of your expertise and would be happy to highly recommend your services to others. Thank you for all your help.

After ten years of hearing and reading about how to improve sales productivity I finally learned something from Kurlan.

Dynamic speaker…full of good practical info; would love to hear more from him.

Cuts through BS. Well worth the time – will contact him for consulting.

An interesting session with new approaches and a different point of view. Dave Kurlan’s content is worthy of more scheduled time. Bring him back and provide more time!

Very good – good ideas, good energy level…a great workshop – one of the best.

In my opinion the Kurlan and Associates Sales Leadership Intensive should be a required course for anyone that has a role in sales leadership and/or management. In the intensive you’ll hear real examples of top reps who are being hindered by their self-limiting beliefs or lack of process, then you’ll learn the most effective way to coach your reps past these struggles. The guys at Kurlan and Associates keep the training fun, intense, and leave you wanting more. The only negative with this course is that it’s only 2 days, and trust me, you’ll wish it was more!

This was the most focused training on sales leadership I’ve ever attended. I left a better leader for my people.

The training last week was great! One big takeaway was seeing how much work I have in front of me with instilling the sales process with our team and coaching to it. Even better though was seeing a clear path through those challenges with the fundamental and specific examples throughout the two days.

The Kurlan Sales Leadership Intensive Course was one of the more enjoyable and valuable courses I have attended in quite a while, and I have been through many. Dave’s style and vast knowledge made the two days fly by. I usually have one maybe two takeaways from a course like this but after the Kurlan Sales Leadership Intensive, I have a list of things I can implement right away that will have an impact on our organization.

I have worked with Chris and Kurlan for several years. We have maintained an ongoing relationship on the sales testing front, but we have also worked closely together on sales recruiting techniques, interviewing, and other skills. We have found the philosophy of Kurlan, and the direct approach of Chris, to be extremely helpful in evaluating talent. I have very specific success stories, and decisions we made to go in different directions, that were directly influenced by this relationship in a positive way. Thank you!

We are now recruiting and hiring far better sales talent than ever before and closing consistently larger more competitive deals. Most importantly we are doing this with a much higher margin. We have a daily huddle with the regional sales teams which has resulted in a VERY close bond and the sharing of best practices. We have transformed our corporate culture and eliminated excuse making. We are hiring much higher quality reps that have the correct skills sets to take us to the next level. We have learned and implemented very unique interviewing techniques that identify top producing reps. Sales Management has very clear process of managing the sales reps daily, weekly, monthly. We have a 5X Pipeline with much higher quality opportunities. I have so many positive things that I would like to share with you about how this program as it has enabled me to completely rebuild my team and transform my Region.

Chris, things are going incredibly well thanks to your incredible coaching. I know I can get even better with your help. Thanks again for all of your help, and I look forward to talking with you again.

Thank you for the Sales Leadership Intensive training last week. I appreciate your willingness to lead and flexibility to customize the 3 days to such a small group. Speaking of the group, it was a pleasure to be a part of such a motivated, open, and professional group of people. The sharing among the team helped to drive home the course teachings, plus helped me gain a better understanding of the challenges I now face growing revenues at IPS. Sales Leadership INTENSIVE is a proper title for the course since a lot of valuable information was covered in a short period of time. Despite your challenge Dave, you kept it fun , interactive, and relevant – especially tying the main themes of the course back to movie clips! I truly appreciate your help with my “ramp up” at IPS and your future support as a valued resource to the IPS sales and management teams!