Search Results

  • The Baseball Experience That Continues to Generate a 28% Increases in Sales

    • February 10, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The challenge isn’t whether or not they’ll enjoy and benefit greatly from the training.  The challenge is getting sales leaders to attend the training!  There’s a little matter of ego.  Most successful sales leaders have fairly large egos and while their egos helped spur them on to their current roles, now that they’re in their current roles, their egos sometimes obstruct their ability to improve, ask for help, and bring professional training into their companies.  The voice in their head whispers thoughts like:

    read more

  • Sales is Like Baseball and Baseball Can Save Capitalism and Liberty

    • July 18, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Before you think that this applies only to youth baseball teams, I want to be clear.  Sales teams are like this too.  In the past 35 years I have personally trained hundreds of sales teams and tens of thousands of salespeople and sales teams always have the same 8 salespeople:

    read more

  • The Top 8 Requirements for Becoming a Great Salesperson

    • January 14, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Do you remember the moment you became a Salesperson?  Not a presenter, Not an order taker, but a true consultative sales professional?

    Here are some guidelines to identify the moment you turned professional. 

    read more

  • Another Powerful Reason Why Salespeople Struggle to Become Great Sales Managers

    • February 2, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We talk a lot about the mistake so many companies make when they take their best salespeople and make them sales managers.  While it’s not always a mistake, the most commonly discussed reasons include:

    read more

  • Holiday Sales Treat – A Mashup of Two Classic Songs

    • December 6, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This past weekend I read that the lyrics to the popular Christmas song, “Baby it’s Cold Outside” were rewritten to emphasize consent.  And the weekend before I saw the news that Brady Bunch Mom, Florence Henderson, had passed away.  That immediately caused the Brady Bunch theme song to come to mind but my brain tends to combine things. In 2005, when I combined sales and baseball,  it became Baseline Selling, which when I looked as I was writing this, was still ranked #9 in the sales category on Amazon.com.  So my brain went and combined the Brady Bunch Theme song with a lyric change and came up with this diddy on OMG.

    read more

  • Remembering The Most Powerful Sales Lesson of My Life

    • September 6, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Which one thing helps almost every salesperson succeed, even when they have other challenges?

    read more

  • Did You Know That There is a Season for Hiring Salespeople?

    • September 17, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Did you know that when it comes to hiring salespeople, there are also seasonal trends we know to be true ?

    read more

  • Should a Salesperson be Punished after a Huge Sale?

    • May 4, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My wife and I watched with a combination of fascination, sadness and shock as the coach of our son’s 12 and under AAU baseball team made them run suicides after the double header they won on Saturday, and again after the double header they won on Sunday.  Why would he punish them after winning four games this weekend?  And how does this apply to sales?  You’ll be amazed by what you read.

    read more

  • 20 Lessons from a 10-Year Sales Blogger

    • April 16, 2015
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    When my COO, John Pattison, had an excited look on his face, I thought he had a great new idea for a product enhancement.  Instead, he said, “Did you know that this week is the 10th Anniversary of your Blog?”  I didn’t.  He also pointed out that I had written and posted 1,236 articles, generated more than 562,000 views directly on my blog and perhaps double or triple that number when you include syndication.  So what have I learned about blogging and how can that help you?

    read more

  • Leading a Sales Force is Even More Like Baseball

    • November 6, 2014
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I’ve written plenty about the similarity betwen baseball and selling, but today I’m writing about the similarity between baseball and sales leadership.  If you’re not a baseball person, you might not see the same things that I see, most of which can be applied to leading a sales force.  For example,

    read more