Dave Kurlan’s Understanding the Sales Force Blog

  • The Deadbolt Test: What Looks Fine on Your Sales Team From Three Feet Away
    • September 7, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Compensation, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    Two salespeople in business attire try to kick open a wooden office door with a prominent brass deadbolt that does not line up with the strike plate.

    From three feet away, most sales teams look locked. Get up close and the deadbolt doesn’t line up. Ten places the door is theater, and a simple test for how easy it would be to kick in.

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  • Inbound Ruined Outbound — But It’s Not Too Late to Join the Evolution
    • September 4, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    A boy holding greeting cards knocks on a 1960s front door while a rotary wall phone and a snowy black-and-white television sit inside the house.

    Phones evolved. TVs evolved. Selling got inbound, tools, and a buyer-journey myth — and most salespeople used all three as a hall pass to skip the conversation. Only 17% can still do the thing that works.

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  • There Is No Sales Equity: Why Sales Training Methods Don’t Produce the Same Results
    • September 1, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    Split illustration comparing Food Equity, where every dinner path leads to the same meal, with No Sales Equity, where eight sales development methods produce very different salesperson results.

    Dinner has a dozen paths and one meal. That’s Food Equity. Developing a sales team looks the same and isn’t. There is no Sales Equity — the method you pick does not produce the same outcome. Here’s why, and which mix actually changes results.

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  • Why You Should Stop Trying to Be the Star of the Sales Call
    • August 22, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Music and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    various bass players and drummers are like various types of salespeople

    A simple music analogy reveals why the best salespeople don’t try to be the star of the call — and what the alternative looks like.

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  • How Prospects Use EMCOM to Push Away Salespeople
    • August 17, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Modern U.S. Navy destroyer running completely dark at night under a starry sky with faint radar arcs, illustrating EMCOM radio silence used by prospects to hide buying urgency from salespeople

    Prospects with real urgency often go radio silent — just like a warship running EMCOM — to keep salespeople from discovering the problem that would actually make them buy. Here’s why that resistance exists and how the best salespeople manage it.

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  • The Biblical Sales Force Part 8: Qualification
    • August 17, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Bible and Sales, Sales Process, Understanding the Sales Force
    Classical painting-style scene of the Canaanite woman kneeling before Jesus with a speech bubble reading “You’re not qualified,” illustrating early disqualification and the power of persistence and faith in the sales process.

    Most sales teams treat qualification as a checkbox. The Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 shows why that approach fails—and what actually separates a Marketing Qualified Lead from a real opportunity.

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  • Why Salespeople Prescribe Before They Diagnose (And Kill Their Win Rates)
    • August 11, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

    Most salespeople jump straight to the demo. A real consultative approach looks more like a thorough doctor’s exam than a product pitch — and the difference shows up clearly in win rates.

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  • The Sales Process Scramble
    • August 3, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Open-face breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese next to a baseball diamond diagram of the Baseline Selling process showing Suspect, Prospect, Qualified, and Scored stages

    Skipping just one step in the sales process can turn a sure thing into a rubbery mess. Here’s why it happens and how a real process destroys the hope that keeps weak opportunities alive.

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  • Why Reaching Decision Makers Is the Curve Ball Most Salespeople Can’t Hit
    • July 30, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force

    Most salespeople never get in front of the actual decision maker. The data shows just how big the gap is between the top performers and everyone else—and why this one competency acts like the curve ball that ends most opportunities.

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  • Book More Meetings by Hunting Like a Hawk
    • July 22, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Pipeline and Forecast, Understanding the Sales Force
    salespeople lack new meetings

    Inbound is for the birds. Most salespeople haven’t made a real cold call in years. Here’s why your team needs to start hunting like hawks again — and how to do it.

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