Dave Kurlan
-
Illuminate and Dust Off Your Sales Force
- March 14, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever noticed the same thing in your home, apartment or office? The air looks clear, but when the sun comes beaming through, it suddenly illuminates billions of tiny dust particles that you didn’t know existed.
Sometimes, you get an even rarer peak into that confused state when you are between awake and asleep. You know you just caught a glimpse of a conversation that even seconds later you can’t recall. But it was there.
It’s the illumination factor that I want to talk about.
-
Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson and the Sales Assessment Industry
- March 12, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are some wonderful assessment companies that have been doing their thing – personality assessments and behavioral styles assessments – for decades. The companies do those two types of assessments quite well. They are accurate, informative and useful when used as originally intended – to understand people better. Over the past decade most of them have attempted sales assessments and the results are very similar to the Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson albums. They should stick to what they do best!
-
Top 10 Reasons Salespeople Struggle to Get Decisions
- March 7, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you were to remove the easy “yes” and “no” decisions that your salespeople hear during the course of the year, 80% of the opportunities that have been stalled in your pipeline would still be there. Why is it so difficult for your salespeople to get decisions made on those opportunities?
The simple answer, the one you already know, is that those prospects aren’t ready to buy. Here are ten reasons why your salespeople have them in the pipeline:
-
The Sales Assessment Client Who Didn’t Renew after All These Years
- March 5, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
He has been a client of Objective Management Group (OMG) for over 20 years. He had a license to use OMG’s Sales Candidate Assessments and, as most clients do, had renewed it each year. When we met for breakfast recently, he told me that he had a new VP of Sales and would not be renewing his license this year. I was surprised for two reasons:
-
Sales Team Morale is Overrated
- March 2, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Someone posted the question, “Are you already behind on your YTD sales goals?”.
One responses was another question, “What are some different ways you keep morale high when the team is behind on goals?”
I responded to this question with the following answer:
-
Sales Education – New Events, Articles and Books
- February 28, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today’s article has a collection of links to help you, your sales managers and your salespeople become more effective.
-
How to Use Playlists to be More Effective at Selling
- February 27, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Clients don’t usually know what they really need, but instead often identify what they think they need. Clients hardly ever know what their problems truly are, but some have identified symptoms.
-
What Makes a Lead a Good Lead?
- February 22, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A dozen leads came in today and among them were leads from DELL and Bose. Both are large companies and might even make great clients but are they good leads? That all depends on who you ask.
So I pretended to ask 6 salespeople that I’ve worked with over the past several years. I pretended to say, “I have leads from DELL and Bose – are you interested in either of them?” And here is how the imaginary conversation went from there:
-
What It Really Means When CRM Isn’t a Sales Force Priority
- February 15, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s rare when a company isn’t using something for CRM, even if it’s an old version of ACT. In most companies, it’s not whether they are using CRM, it’s which CRM they have chosen to use and whether the CRM has actually been adopted. The CRM application of choice is completely useless to management unless the entire sales force is using it as intended.