Search Results
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The Biblical Sales Force Part 2 – On Boarding and Coaching Salespeople
- October 14, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As I wrote in September, I’m reading the Bible from beginning to end for the first time. In my first article using an analogy from the Bible, I wrote about scaling, hiring and firing salespeople, based on what I read in Genesis. Today’s article is about on boarding and coaching salespeople, and is an analogy from Exodus.
Early in Exodus, we are introduced to Moses, whose people have been slaves to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hundreds of years. God appears to Moses and commands him to approach Pharaoh and persuade him to release the Israelites so they can freely worship their God. Moses lacks confidence in his ability to articulate the request, and questions God’s direction. He wonders if there might be someone better to handle this important assignment.
God had to build Moses’ confidence, and properly prepare him for the conversation he will have with Pharaoh. This is the equivalent to pre-call strategizing, one of several methods for coaching salespeople. God needed to provide Moses with talking points sufficient to give him gravitas with Pharaoh, so he provided Moses the God-like ability to turn his brother Aaron’s staff into a snake. We accomplish the same thing when we prepare a salesperson with powerful messaging and talking points.
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Baseball, The Toad and Coaching Unresponsive Salespeople
- April 11, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Coaching salespeople is challenging. When they aren’t responsive to coaching it’s not only more difficult, it is downright frustrating. When you’re attempting to coach unresponsive salespeople to use the phone to directly talk with a decision maker, there isn’t much upside. Whether you’ve made this coaching attempt one time or one hundred times, the outcome will be the same, so the question we should be asking is, should this salesperson still be working for you?
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25 Sales Experts on the Importance of Coaching Salespeople
- February 25, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales managers are still not coaching – at least not consistently or effectively. As a reminder, consistent daily coaching increases revenue by 28% and when it is paired with effective coaching, revenue increases by 43%. It’s simply incomprehensible that sales managers aren’t picking up the clue phone.
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How to Use Buckets to Improve Sales Performance and Coaching
- February 19, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Buckets are important, especially when you’re attempting to coach up a salesperson or even improve your own sales performance. If you don’t have the OMG evaluation at your fingertips and can’t lookup the scores in 21 Sales Core Competencies, or see which attributes need to be improved, you’ll need to think in terms of buckets.
When salespeople are struggling, there are five primary buckets to consider:
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Are Sales Managers Coaching More Frequently Now That Everyone is at Their Desks?
- January 14, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We know how sales managers were doing before the pandemic. It wasn’t very good and I wrote about it in November which had data for the last 10 years. What do you think would be different if I filtered the data to show only the last six months of 2020, the time during which sales managers should have already made changes? Do you think it got better, worse, or stayed the same?
Let’s find out.
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New Data – Most Sales Managers are a Disaster When it Comes to Coaching
- November 16, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My article about Crappy Sales Managers discussed the low recommendation rates for sales management candidates, why they are so low, and the bigger repercussions of the problem. Speaking of deeper dives, today’s article takes a deeper dive into one of the problems identified in the prior article; crappy sales coaching skills.
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How Sales Coaching Utilizes a Quid Pro Quo
- October 24, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Quid pro quo is all the rage. The news networks are pointing to and from quid pro quo and arguing whether it was or wasn’t implied. Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you’re on, you’ve probably heard it plenty more than you need to.
Could there be a sales coaching lesson here?
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Win a Free Coaching Call with Dave Kurlan and 4 More Prizes
- June 12, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
By the middle of June each year, we tend to know who the best of the best are. Super Bowl Champion, NBA Champion, Stanley Cup Winner, Masters Winner, and in baseball, MLB all-stars are being selected. It’s as good a time as any to recognize the best readers of Understanding the Sales Force!
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Why Coaching Causes Some Sales Managers to Hold On for Dear Life
- March 4, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Over the past few months I’ve been coaching 30 sales leaders from 3 companies and while most are trying their hardest to do everything I recommend, apply everything they learn, and coach as instructed, there are several that don’t follow through and fail to move the needle for their teams. A few don’t want to be coached. A few don’t think they need to be coached. A few are too proud to be coached. A couple are too mentally challenged to be coached.
Avoidance aside, there are six scientifically proven reasons for their struggles and I’ll share them with you here.
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Finally! Science Reveals the Actual Impact of Sales Coaching
- September 7, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You must have heard the joke that 73.6% of statistics are made up!
I have read and even reported that sales leaders who coach their salespeople see a boost in revenue of around 27%. It sounds like a realistic number but I have not seen any science to back it up. Until now. Check this out!