Blog
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Most Sales Processes, Funnels and Pipelines are How Old?
- September 29, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I was looking for an image of a sales funnel and couldn’t believe what I found! My search results can be found here. Can you believe all of those images of sales funnels? Look them over and see if you can recognize the problem with all of them.
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Hidden Sales Competition and Why it Could Happen to You
- September 27, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever had a sales opportunity that was completely under control, you were following your sales process, everything was looking great, and then, from out of nowhere and without warning, surprise competitors appeared?
Yes, the magic mushroom competitors!
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How to Prepare for the Coming Sales Team Super Storm
- September 22, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My first reaction was that this must have been something from 2016 – right before the boom that lasted until the pandemic slammed the economy to the ground. Or, from the 4th quarter of 2020, when we expected the economy to come roaring back. But it simply can’t be something that is remotely relevant to what we are about to experience. Here’s what we know, and how that will impact companies and their sales teams in 2022.
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The Sales Compensation Plan from Hell and How to Improve It
- September 17, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever seen a compensation plan so complicated, so illogical and so detailed that all you could do was stare at it and wonder, WTF?
I did. This week. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. There were several sales groups selling different services to different audiences, several roles in each group, different plans for each role, different percentages, some of the compensation was guaranteed but some was variable and had to be earned by achieving quantitative and qualitative goals consisting of variable weighted goals, some of which were based on revenue while others were based on percentage achievement of goal. The only way to figure it all out was to draw a table on the white board and start filling it in. When we were done it looked like the monstrosity below:
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The Chainsaw Massacre and Building Sales Teams
- September 14, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Despite the existence of both a science and a process for hiring salespeople, most efforts also tend to be hit or miss and the emphasis always seems to be on miss. There are plenty of reasons why, and we can discuss some of them, but the biggest and most insane reason is…
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Data: The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4200% Better at This
- September 7, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My wife and I entered the small jewelry shop and were greeted – not with a warm welcome – but with a matter of fact “my name is…and I’m the owner…and I created everything in the store” which was followed by fifteen minutes of non-stop presentation of everything she created.
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How To Stop Sucking by Understanding and Changing Your Sales Metrics
- August 30, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Suppose a company reports that its win rate is 24%. Does that tell you anything other than they suck? It doesn’t tell us how badly they suck, why they suck, how long they’ve sucked, who sucks, or whether there is any hope for them to stop sucking. And even if their win rate is double the 24%, the same questions apply. Let me explain.
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Follow This Advice to Schedule More Meetings and Spend Less Time Doing It
- August 25, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Regular readers know that I’m all about the data and I have written nearly two thousand articles based on data from Objective Management Group’s (OMG) assessments of more than two million salespeople. Occasionally however, I see data where incorrect conclusions have been reached and like the toad on the window, my conclusions run counter to theirs. One such example is a beautiful infographic from sales playbook company Xant. I am going to share some of their data, graphics and conclusions and I’ll provide my counter argument to their conclusions.
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Nothing Beats This One Tool When You Can’t Sell Face to Face
- August 19, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are some misguided selling strategies that can be undone and in today’s article we’ll discuss the benefits of the single tool that is the real deal and a huge difference maker.
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Siri Can’t Help You Close the Deal but Doing These Three Things Can!
- August 9, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sometimes Siri doesn’t actively listen and decides to send you somewhere different from where you asked her to navigate; a different city or town and/or a place that doesn’t sound remotely close to what you asked for. She gets in the way.
So what do you do when Siri isn’t cooperating? Do you give up and wing it? Do you try again? Do you stop navigating with Siri and switch to Google, Waze or your built-in system? Do you persist until you get what you need?
That’s exactly what salespeople are supposed to do. Get creative, be persistent and find a way to reach the decision maker. You do it with Siri, so why don’t you do it when someone in the company won’t introduce you to the decision maker, when they won’t give you the decision maker’s name or when they don’t cooperate? Why do so many salespeople give up and plow forward with the contact they are speaking with right now?