Search Results

  • Top 4 Reasons Salespeople Struggle to Reach Decision Makers

    • October 30, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So here we are again, with half of the salespeople reporting that they aren’t reaching decision makers.  And why would a decision maker want to be reached if the salespeople are focused only on presentations?  And companies wonder why their sales cycles are so long, their closing percentages are so low and their margins are slip sliding away…

    Also noteworthy were these findings from the survey results:

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  • Science and the Length of Your Sales Cycle

    • October 9, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A really important factor is exactly what salespeople actually believe – what they think – relative to the sales cycle.  Read some of the beliefs that this sales force had around the sales cycle:

    Those two factors alone are enough to double the length of a sales cycle!  There are still 9 more factors that have an impact; however, just from what we’ve discussed and reviewed so far, it’s obvious that this company’s sales cycle is M-U-C-H longer than it needs to be.

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  • Can You Improve a Kick-Ass Sales Force?

    • September 11, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you are reading this, and your company matches up with any one of my criteria for underdogs, then you couldn’t possibly get away with what Hubspot can get away with.  You must have strong hunters who are adept at overcoming resistance, can differentiate by selling consultatively, and ask the kinds of questions that develop respect, allowing prospects to open their mind to the possibility that you can help.

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  • Why Can’t We Hire This Sales Candidate?

    • July 22, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We interviewed him; she’s from our industry; we really like him; but your assessment says she is not recommended.  Why can’t we hire her?

    That’s probably the single, most frequently asked question that we hear.

    So, to answer the “Why can’t we?” question, there are two more questions:

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  • Sales Management Best Practices – Are Top Salespeople Challengers?

    • April 29, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I don’t promote an approach based on either Relationships or Solution Selling, but both must be incorporated into an appropriate sales approach.  Also worth noting, the approach or methodology is only one part of selling.  Without a sales process and a sales model, no methodology will work very well on its own.

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  • Harvard Business Review Blog Off Target on Sales Greatness

    • March 5, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This recent article in the Harvard Business Review Blog was as far off target as any I have ever debunked.  Steve Martin lists 7 characteristics that he says differentiate great sales forces from good ones.  His seven are:

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  • Sales Excellence Studies Propagate Mediocrity

    • February 26, 2013
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you conduct a Google search for “sales excellence studies”, you’ll find more than 20,000 results.  I’m sure that some results point to surveys which were conducted by others, but either way, that’s a lot of studies on sales excellence.  If any of those studies were actually ground-breaking, insightful or truly representative of sales excellence, there would probably be fewer than a dozen. But there are not.  There are many reasons why these studies are so lame, but let’s name just a few:

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  • Get Your Sales Force to Perform Magic and Make Sales Appear!

    • January 5, 2012
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We don’t talk about it much but sales has a lot of magic to it.

    We disguise the magic and call it art, but when people are unable to describe how it actually works it must be magic.  Want an example?

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  • Every Sales Assessment Tells a Story – This is Fred’s Story

    • December 19, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When his boss couldn’t understand why Fred wasn’t performing, we performed a sales force evaluation and among the things we focused in on was Fred.

    Fred’s Sales DNA was generally quite good but when it came to his selling skills, there were a few problems that explained everything.

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  • How Can Strong Salespeople Lack Desire for Success?

    • October 20, 2011
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This question is kind of funny to me.

    Using Objective Management Group’s Sales Candidate Assessment, a company could assess 1,000 salespeople, understand that Lack of Desire for Success in Sales causes an automatic “Not Recommended”, and not be tempted to interview a single candidate who lacks Desire. That is until they introduce a sales candidate that they “know” into the mix.

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