Dave Kurlan

  • Born to Sell? Give me a Break!

    • December 18, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We all have what we believe are better methodologies, strategies and tactics.  But there are some topics that are just begging for data – not opinion – and the author I seem to target more than any other just wrote one such article on whether great sales pros are born that way.  All opinion.  But based on what?  He doesn’t really say.  He simply uses his two kids as comparison.  The problem is, he is dead wrong and the data says so.

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  • Missing Sales Research and a Call for Sales Superstars

    • December 16, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I read this article on the Best-Kept Secrets of Sales Research.

    First, I wouldn’t call this sales research as much as market intelligence. 

    Second, I wouldn’t exactly call this stuff secretive.

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  • Your Sales and Sales Management Questions Answered Part I

    • December 15, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    In an article last week, I provided the post to a sales competency contest. The final question in that survey asked the participants for any sales issues they needed help with. Today I’ll answer the first four of those questions below:

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  • Sales Assessment Completion Time May Impact Validity of the Findings

    • December 14, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    How would you like to influence the development of our never-ending quest for improvement in our suite of world-class assessment tools?  We constantly seek ways to expand our world-class insights, legendary accuracy, and real-world relevance.

    I just reviewed some new data that shows the percentage of Sales Candidate Assessments that are completed in a particular amount of time.  

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  • Are Sales Cycles Really Getting Shorter?

    • December 11, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I read an article that claimed that winning sales cycles are getting shorter. 

    While I agree with everything else in the article, I questioned the 23% shorter because our substantial data does not support this claim.  So where could the discrepancy be?

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  • Sales Competencies Contest – Win Prizes

    • December 10, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Speaking of Sales Competencies, Rocky LaGrone was back on Meet the Sales Experts yesterday and what a great show.  In addition to sales competencies we also discussed training and coaching competencies.  I think this episode was one of the fastest moving shows we’ve produced to date.

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  • Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions – What’s Missing?

    • December 9, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I was asked a really good question yesterday.  Why wasn’t the Sales Force Evaluation or the Sales Candidate Assessments part of my series on the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions?

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  • Ultimate Comparison of Top Salespeople versus Salespeople That Fail

    • December 8, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you’ve been following this Blog you know I sometimes refer to the elite 5% of salespeople, the next 20% and the bottom 74%.  After reading Super Freakonomics I was moved to take a new look at our data on the more than 400,000 salespeople we have assessed.  Behavioral scientists would look at our data on the top 5% and report on some common findings.  It might look like this: 

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  • Sales 2.0 Competencies, Changes and Myths

    • December 7, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There has been much talk about Sales 2.0 yet most sales experts can’t agree on exactly what it is.  But before we can even discuss Sales 2.0, I must confess that most companies have yet to get on board with good old Sales 1.x!  Most companies are still selling without formalized sales processes, effective strategies and effective tactics.  Most companies still have their salespeople show up, present, demo, quote and wait for the business. 

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  • Lance Armstrong’s Metrics Applied to the Sales Force Equals Results

    • December 4, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recently, I completed Lance Armstrong’s 2001 book on how he became a champion cyclist, was diagnosed with Cancer, beat the cancer, and then returned to become the greatest cyclist in the world.  It was an inspiring, fast-reading book.  While this won’t come as a surprise to my cyclist friends, I was quite surprised to learn how metric-intensive competitive cycling is.

    While training for races, Lance uses a heavy and expensive power meter that measures output (wattage). For the big race, he uses a smaller and lighter top of the line cycling computer to track speed, heart rate, incline, cadence, altitude gain, and power output. He simply adjusts his cycling until the numbers are where they were when he was training at peak performance and he figures the rest will take care of itself. Wow.

    Sales is exactly the same.  You train hard and once the metrics have been established, you simply continue to meet those numbers and the rest will take care of itself.  Simple.

    There are only a few problems with this:

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