Dave Kurlan

  • Do You Know the Accurate Reason Why a Salesperson Is Not Performing?

    • April 20, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    How quickly can you determine why a salesperson is failing? 

    Dinger loves to play catch with his ball.  He has seven of them but loves his white ball the most.  When we’re out playing catch and I point to a ball and say, “there it is” or “right there” or “get it” he just can’t seem to find it!  Dinger has good listening skills but his ability to see the obvious isn’t very good.

    Such was the case earlier this week when a surprised client wanted an explanation for why one of their salespeople, who does not perform very well, scored well on his evaluation.  “How can someone who is not my top performer score better than someone who is my top performer?”

    That sounded like a challenge so I said, “Let’s go!”

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  • The Philosophy of a Pitching Coach Will Improve Your Sales Team

    • April 4, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I find ideas and material for this Blog everywhere, especially when I’m not looking for them. Yesterday I received a daily email from a Paul Reddick, a baseball coach who was drumming up some business for his baseball institute. It resonated – not for its baseball coaching – but as sales coaching.  Here’s what it said:

    If your coach is talking about any of the pitching flaws that you see listed above…

    Run… Run Fast!

    That Coach is working on “flaws” that will have no impact on your pitching.  He is working on symptoms… not the illness!  He is trying to fix things that are happening as a byproduct of incorrect movement early in your delivery. If you get the first second of your delivery right, almost all of these flaws get fixed instantly. 

    Do you know how this applies to sales? 

    I’ll explain exactly how it applies and I promise you will be surprised!  Click here to read last year’s fun article comparing pitcher’s fielding practice (PFP) to role-playing in sales.

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  • Top Sales Videos and Rants From Dave Kurlan

    • March 21, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    From time to time I record impromptu unscripted rants as well as some that are more well thought-out videos.  From among the collection presented below, most are rants so the rants are much more popular.  The most-watched (I have added to the list so there are more than 10 now!) videos are shown below in order of popularity and while I like all of them, I indicated my personal favorites with an asterisk.  All but three of the videos are three-minutes or less, one is six-minutes, one is ten-minutes and one is eight-minutes.  Topics include:

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  • Great Sales Managers are Like Great Baseball Coaches Without the Screaming

    • March 15, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The biggest difference between great sales managers and crappy sales managers is how effectively they coach up their salespeople to make them better.  There are two parts to this:

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  • The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4,000% Better at this than the Bottom 10%

    • March 3, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I found Dinger with his nose glued to my front bumper where some of the deer’s hair was still attached to my car.  Dinger, who loves to bark at deer from the safety of our home, seemed to be saying, “Ohhhh, so THIS is what a deer smells like!”

    The exact same thing happened to a salesperson I was training.  It wasn’t a deer or a dog, it was about Jim’s sales aha moment.

    His team was asked to send me an email with their five biggest lessons from their first six months of training.  Among Jim’s top five was this one:

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  • The Cold Email I Read Through to the End – Is  There Hope for Salespeople and Marketers?

    • February 22, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sunday I received a cold email, generated using AI that was actually personalized.  Not with just my name, but it included information about my company, where I attended college and more.  While I still have no interest or need for the service being pitched, I actually read it instead of deleting it.  Here’s what it said:

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  • 10 Steps to Crushing Your Sales Forecasts

    • February 18, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Times change but one constant is the requirement for monthly, quarterly and annual sales forecasts.  It used to be difficult to come up with that number but with the technology we have today, a single click in our CRM applications should show us the accurate number.  But there is always a lingering question that accompanies that click:  Is that really the accurate number?

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  • When Salespeople Can’t Close Closable Business – The Bob Chronicles Part 7

    • February 14, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So what did Bob get himself into this time?

    It’s a huge opportunity that Bob has been nurturing for years and several months ago his prospect, a top executive that has the influence and authority to make a decision, confided that he would like to find a way to do business and not only that, have this be part of his legacy. 

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  • The Difference Between CyberThieves, Hackers and Most Salespeople

    • February 10, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    On the one hand, I am shocked and chagrinned that the insurance company would use salespeople as a reference point for hackers.  You could not possibly understand the degree to which It bothers me.  

    On the other hand, you and I both know that if salespeople worked as methodically, consistently, aggressively, effectively, and efficiently as the hackers do, we would double our revenue.

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  • 62% Less Turnover and 80% Higher Quota Attainment When You Hire Salespeople the Right Way

    • February 3, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you have a sales cycle of several months or more, subsidize your salespeople until they are self-sufficient, and in early 2022 it takes 3 months to find a suitable candidate, you are screwed before you start!  Once you finally identify a decent candidate, you have hours, not days or weeks, to make a decision and pull the trigger and what’s the worst that can happen?  Six months or more pass before you realize that salesperson won’t make it and you not only wasted a half year’s salary, you lost six months, have an empty territory or vertical, and have to start over from the beginning!

    It doesn’t have to be that way and here’s why.

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