Search Results
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How the Cheesecake Factory Menu Can Make You a Better Closer
- September 13, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever visited a Cheesecake Factory? I LOVE the menu – they offer EVERYTHING. The downside is that because there are so many items to choose from, it’s difficult to decide what to order. That’s better than the options you have with my Blog.
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Finally! Science Reveals the Actual Impact of Sales Coaching
- September 7, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You must have heard the joke that 73.6% of statistics are made up!
I have read and even reported that sales leaders who coach their salespeople see a boost in revenue of around 27%. It sounds like a realistic number but I have not seen any science to back it up. Until now. Check this out!
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Elite Salespeople are 26 Times More Effective at This Competency Than Weak Salespeople
- August 14, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Elite salespeople don’t need to close and weak salespeople suck at closing. Want proof? Let’s review some data from 1831605 evaluations and assessments of salespeople conducted by Objective Management Group (OMG). You can see and play with the data here.
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New Data Shows How Relationships and the Need to be Liked Impact Sales Performance
- June 4, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In my most recent article, I shared data that showed a chain reaction would occur when salespeople have more than one major weakness in their Sales DNA and the second major weakness is their tendency to become emotional. As a trigger, the first major weakness causes the salesperson to become emotional, at which time their listening skills become compromised.
That article can be found here and as of this writing nearly 6 dozen LinkedIn subscribers have contributed some very insightful comments here. Their comments inspired me to dig even further and look into the correlation between relationship building that salespeople do and their need to be liked. In this study, even I was surprised by what I found!
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Is the Sales Force Getting Dressed Up or are Real Changes Taking Place?
- February 7, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday I received an email from Richardson Training, letting me know that they have completed their 2018 Selling Challenges Study. The data in the report, which you can download here, hasn’t changed a great deal since 2017, but the report’s new look is awesome. I reported on last year’s report in detail here, but my conclusion for 2018 is the exact same conclusion I came to in 2017.
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What You Should Know When Your Cold Prospect Suddenly Returns From the Dead
- January 15, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week I wrote about the deep freeze, why prospects suddenly go cold, and how you can prevent that from happening. That article was instantly as popular as any I have ever written. I also posted a 6-minute cold-calling rant on LinkedIn that had more than five-thousand views after just a couple of days. The video, like the article, was about mindset, not scripting and tactics. And last week I also posted an article about writing a good prospecting email. It seems that there was a theme to the week and it resonated really well with the readers.
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Sales Effectiveness – How to Win Every RFP That You Respond To
- June 19, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I am amazed by the sheer number of salespeople who believe they must respond to an RFP, RFQ or RFI. The resources, including people, time and money, required to respond to the specs from just one of these requests is daunting. Some companies have so many requests coming in that they spend all of their time responding to them. This is crazy! Do you respond to every email you receive? Every call you get? After all, it’s a request, not a demand. So why the frenzy over responding and replying so quickly? You won’t believe some of the reasons!
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Sales Science and Data Win the Day
- June 15, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There were some really great articles from the first half of the year. I’ll share the top 3 by views, the top 3 by shares and the top 3 by engagement but you’ll instantly notice that whether it’s views, shares or engagement, sales science and data – stuff you can sink your teeth into – win the day.
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Predict the Weather but Control the Sales Forecast and Revenue
- June 6, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You may be familiar when the rant sounds like: “It’s almost the end of the quarter, we’re only at 65% of forecast, the pipeline is half empty, and nothing is closing. With the exception of 3 nice deals that came in during May, our salespeople have sucked.”
While the crappy weather and your crappy 2nd quarter revenue have crappy in common, there is one huge difference that can help you hit your sales forecast even when the weather forecast is for rain.
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10 Selling Scenarios When You Must Slow Down
- February 7, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Rick Porcello’s thoughts about the importance of slowing down in certain situations and focusing on the present apply to the following 10 sales and sales leadership scenarios. Slow down: