Search Results
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How to be Memorable – Things to Do When You are Selling Yourself
- August 17, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Friday, Tom Schaff sent me something to show his appreciation. He reviewed my book, Baseline Selling, noted the story about the very first baseball game I ever attended, found the original program from that July 9, 1964 game, and sent it along. Wow! He also sent the actual banner that was hung to memorialize my favorite player from the 60’s, Tony Conigliaro.
That was a very moving gesture – Thank you Tom!
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2 Things Race Car Driving Has in Common with Selling
- July 16, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Karl Scheible was my guest on this week’s edition of Meet the Sales Experts and Karl is not only a sales development expert, but he is also a professional race car driver! How many people do you suppose there are that can take claim to both of those professions?
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The Secret – The Ancient Scrolls and its Impact on the Sales Force
- March 24, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Since this book is not the Kabbalah itself, rather a Cliff Notes version, it tends to read more like a self-help book. It is far more powerful than a self-help book though as it points to a number of rules that will cause a transformation in one’s life.
Seven of the desired behaviors are consistent with the philosophies in Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball as well as Objective Management Group’s Sales Assessments:
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Improve Sales Performance with More Effective Pipeline Management
- November 10, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Related to pipeline, I hate inappropriate blog commenting. That’s when people seek out a blog only to use it as an excuse to write about what they’re promoting on their site. It’s the other form of SPAM. The way it manifests itself on this blog is when someone targets one of my posts on closing or pipeline management and then adds their comment about how you can solve this problem by using lead analytics software or search engine optimization. I’m all for tools of this type and I love Hubspot’s lead analytics and SEO but let’s be real. SEO and on line analytics help to generate leads; they have as much to do with closing effectiveness as Michael Jordan has credentials for baseball’s Hall of Fame! Over achievers, using their sales competencies, create improved sales performance.
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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 Statistics That Reveal Sales Effectiveness
- September 26, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Jeff Angus, author of the Management by Baseball Blog, wrote this lengthy article in response to my Pitch Count post from last week. While Part I of his manifesto explores pitch count as it relates to injury and effectiveness, he brings up another important point. He talks about the best pitchers not learning how to win by not being expected or conditioned to finish the games they start.
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Salespeople are Like Children – The Series
- August 14, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I have written many articles based on the insights of our son, most when he was between the ages of 3-7. Each article has profound lessons and they’re fun to read. Readers have enjoyed these particular articles so much, and found the lessons to be so good, that I compiled this series called Salespeople are Like Children. As you might expect, some of these articles are my all-time favorites too.
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Manny Being Manny – When to Terminate Top Producers on your Sales Force
- July 28, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most sales forces have a person – a maverick – like Manny; a top producer who marches to the beat of his own drummer. We have a different set of rules for these producers and as long as they’re not causing difficulties for anyone else we tend to tolerate what they do and don’t do. They don’t attend all the meetings, aren’t held to the same standards, regularly give us a load of crap and we tolerate it as long as they continue to produce.
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Turning Order Takers into Salespeople
- July 15, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week we brought our six-year old son to the batting cages where, for the first time, he hit against little league pitching. Big deal? You bet. Up until last week, he was clobbering whiffle balls with whiffle bats from about twenty feet away. At the cage, he was wearing a batting helmet, swinging a heavy metal bat, and seeing baseballs thrown at 35 MPH from 45 feet away. It was a huge difference.
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Sales Effectiveness by Borrowing from Best Ball Golf Tournaments
- June 9, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Wouldn’t it be cool if your sales force got easy sales the way amateur golfers get easy pars at Charity run best ball golf tournaments?