Search Results
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What We Think about Sales Motivation is All Wrong
- September 16, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Arno was kind enough to point my attention to this great video presentation from Dan Pink on the science of motivation.
Dan uses science, examples and case histories to tell us that almost everything we thought about motivation is wrong….or is it?
He never mentioned sales, selling, the sales force and salespeople specifically, but we do know that he said this:
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Sales Force Motivation – Learn From the Red Sox Miraculous Comeback
- October 17, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When salespeople have plenty of opportunities and have experienced plenty of difficult sales cycles, it’s not such a big deal when an important opportunity dies. But if it’s a salesperson that has very few quality opportunities or one who hasn’t experienced very many deals that went sour, they react – badly – by getting quite emotional, discouraged, and upset.
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Sales Motivation – Boston Celtics are the Hungriest Team
- March 14, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Max said that Garnett, Pierce and Allen are hungrier veterans because they haven’t won anything yet, unlike some of their counterparts in the NBA. He said that their hunger, more than their talent, is the big differentiator that is making the Celtics the team to beat this year.
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Motivation and the Sales Force
- April 5, 2007
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The root cause of many of the findings was that the sales force was NOT money motivated. Order takers and lack of money motivation are quite the combination. Company executives eventually learn that order takers rely on the on-going and renewal business of their existing customers. These salespeople tend to earn much more than they’re worth, develop a sense of complacency and fail to accomplish what the company needs them to do.
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Stop the Dysfunction in the Sales Function
- June 17, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For some reason, a plurality of executives think way too highly of their company’s sales capabilities and believe they will figure it out themselves. Egos and hurt feelings take priority over best practices, right people in the right seats, sales competencies and sales processes.
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Pump it Up for Sales Performance
- May 14, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A client has a small sales team in the northeastern US. Last week the CEO reconnected with the sales team to check if everyone was selling properly. They weren’t. The team had lost a few customers because a high pressure competitor was stealing their accounts. He initially thought there was a problem with the connections between the sales team and its customers but it was actually a gap in the sales team’s selling skills. The sales team was rusty, having rested on their laurels for years, and the lack of initiative to replace clients they had lost was glaring.
Of course the drama with the sales team could have been avoided and the CEO could have replaced and upgraded the team from the start if he had done these five things:
asked us to evaluate the sales team
checked the pipeline to make sure opportunities were being added
considered the degree to which they underperformed last year
remembered that he had to intervene on a daily basis last year to keep the team motivated
recalled that the team was getting old -
Onboarding and 11 Reasons Why Salespeople are Failing
- May 8, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it comes to sales onboarding, nearly half were not onboarded in their first sales job and 23% more received no sales training relative to how the company’s products/services should be sold. If you were one of those new salespeople, it will come as no surprise but for the rest, and especially those of us who invested in our careers, became students of selling or like me, entered the field of sales development, it’s malpractice practiced at scale by millions of companies. They believe that salespeople should just know what they’re supposed to do and figure it out. How hard can it be? Ha!
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250 Best Articles on Sales and Sales Leadership by Category
- April 4, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
These are the top 10 articles in 25 categories on sales, sales leadership, sales assessments, sales performance, sales excellence, sales process and more.
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25 Sales Experts on the Importance of Coaching Salespeople
- February 25, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales managers are still not coaching – at least not consistently or effectively. As a reminder, consistent daily coaching increases revenue by 28% and when it is paired with effective coaching, revenue increases by 43%. It’s simply incomprehensible that sales managers aren’t picking up the clue phone.
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12 Powerful Sales Lessons from “The Chosen”
- February 6, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ve written hundreds of articles with analogies to sales using athletes, musicians, actors, CEOs, politicians, inventors, songs, movies, TV Shows and their characters and you didn’t need to be a fan of them to appreciate the sales lessons. While watching this enjoyable TV series, I identified eleven solid analogies to sales and selling so we’ll get right to them because I’m sure you aren’t reading my sales articles for my opinions on faith or religion!