Dave Kurlan’s Understanding the Sales Force Blog

  • You Can’t Build Your Way Out of Constipated Revenue
    • October 14, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Understanding the Sales Force
    Infographic titled You Can’t Build Your Way Out of Constipated Revenue showing five priorities that create capacity: Goals, Metrics, Accountability, Support, and Training and Coaching.

    Most companies try to drive revenue by adding longer on-ramps and more lanes—ZoomInfo, Outreach, AI, Gong, and the rest of the stack. The backups stay. Capacity comes from five fundamentals: real goals with no built-in miss, forward-looking metrics with one primary KPI, accountability as a condition of employment, support that is expected, and training plus coaching that actually builds skill. You can start tomorrow.

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  • Why Disappointed Prospects Don’t Switch to Your Company
    • October 8, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    A salesperson kneels beside a customer's desk holding baseball tickets and asking forgiveness, promising it will never happen again, while the customer sits with arms crossed.

    A prospect can spend the meeting building your case and still give the incumbent one more chance. Four questions tell you which buyers are loyal to the letter, which ones keep score, and which deals to stop forecasting.

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  • The Biblical Sales Force, Part 9: Why Agreeable Salespeople Are Not Coachable
    • October 2, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Bible and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    A white-robed figure of God with arms open before a blazing sun, the series image for a sales coaching lesson from Matthew 21:28-32 on coachable salespeople.

    Agreeable salespeople make coaching feel successful. Coachable salespeople change their mind and do the work. Matthew 21:28-32 shows the difference, and most sales managers are grading the wrong son.

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  • Playing Dumb Is a Dumb Sales Strategy — Until You Know When to Stop
    • September 24, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Split-screen illustration: a professor at a podium saying “I am an expert,” and a salesperson at a conference table saying “I have a question.”

    Salespeople love to talk about playing dumb. They don’t know when to stop, and they don’t know how to do it so it shows expertise. Pedro didn’t throw the changeup until the fastball was established. That’s the skill.

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  • Why Salespeople Adopted the Deck and Abandoned the Phone
    • September 21, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Music and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    Vintage slide carousel and laptop presentation on a conference table with an unused phone between them

    Salespeople upgraded the slides and hid behind email. State Farm left a working jingle alone for fifty years. The phone conversation should have gotten the same treatment. Only 17% are strong at the upgrade that actually matters: a consultative sales conversation.

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  • Why Sales Managers Don’t Coach: Two Out of 500 Said Yes
    • September 14, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Baseball and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
    the sales version of baseball's instant replay for salespeople

    We took away the time excuse, the listening excuse, and the cost excuse. Sales leaders at about 500 companies still wouldn’t coach. Two said yes. That’s a quarter of one percent.

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  • The Resume Still Looks Great. The Sales Hire Still Fails.
    • September 10, 2026
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Categories: Analogies, Sales Assessments Compared, Sales Data and Science, Understanding the Sales Force
    Infographic titled The Resume Paradox showing that 46% of new hires fail within 18 months and 89% of those failures are not about technical skill, with AI resume statistics and the traits a resume cannot see.

    46% of new hires fail within 18 months, and 89% of those failures are not about technical skill. A resume can’t see Will to Sell, Sales DNA, or selling competencies — which is why the most credentialed sales candidate is so often the wrong hire.

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  • 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, Dave Origins, 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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