Search Results
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Baseball, Sales Cycles, and the Quest for Shorter
- September 23, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In selling, there are even more options for shortening the sales cycle. They include:
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Baseball and Selling Revisited – A Powerful Analogy
- June 12, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A salesperson tells you about a great-looking opportunity that has been forecast to close this month. “We’re definitely getting this and it’s an awesome opportunity for us. We’re going to knock this one out of the park!”
At the end of the month, the deal hasn’t closed and you question your salesperson about it. You are told that the decision-maker has been away on vacation, but as soon as he returns, the deal is sure to get done.
A month later, nothing has changed. This time, the salesperson admits that he has had a little difficulty reaching the decision-maker, but he is sure that nothing has changed. You are assured that everything is good.
Six months later, when the deal still hasn’t closed, you force the salesperson to archive the opportunity with the salesperson still not understanding what went wrong.
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Baseball’s Huge Impact on Sales Performance
- January 22, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s use Algebra to get a better handle on sales methodology and where it fits in the grand scheme of things. Consider the following formula:
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Are (Lack of) Results Due to the Salesperson or the Company?
- July 9, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Whether your salespeople are underperforming or doing well, are they responsible or is it your company, culture, advertising or offerings that’s responsible?
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Top 7 Reasons Why Ineffective Salespeople Get By
- February 14, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
the typical salesperson receives, on average, 3 days of sales training in their entire career. I’ve interviewed thousands of salespeople (the good ones who have been recommended by the Assessment and performed well on a phone interview) and most of them have never had a single day of professional sales training. And practice? I can tell you that in the past 26 years, there has not been a single client whose salespeople had been practicing the art and science of selling before I required them to start practicing.
Why aren’t salespeople getting enough professional training before and during their employment?
Why aren’t they getting coached the way they should?
Why aren’t they practicing?
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When it Comes to Compensation Sales is Not Like Baseball
- December 9, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The other day a client asked whether salespeople can make the jump from earning $85K to a position that could pay them $150K.
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Compelling Reasons for Your Salespeople to Go Mobile
- June 14, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Good Sales Managers know how important it is for their salespeople to uncover needs.
But it goes way beyond needs.
As I detail in Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball, it requires that your salespeople learn about their prospects’ compelling reasons to buy. Not just their needs. The issues, problems and frustrations – and even the consequences – that would cause them to spend money and spend it with your company, instead of your competitor.
But it goes well beyond compelling reasons.
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Baseball’s General Managers versus Business’ Sales Managers
- March 30, 2010
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The 2010 Major League Baseball season officially gets underway this Sunday evening with its greatest rivalry, the Boston Red Sox versus the New York Yankees, at Fenway Park. It gives me a great excuse to write a baseball themed article. But hey, what else would you expect from the author of Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball?
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Kindle – Lessons Applied to the Sales Force
- February 22, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Readers who have purchased the Kindle have totally embraced that device. Some think it’s the Kindle, not online sellers, that is the biggest threat to brick and mortar book stores. Those of us who own a Kindle are reading more books, and reading them more easily and conveniently than before we had the device.
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Sales and Sales Leadership Lessons from Lou Piniella and the Umpire
- June 23, 2009
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last night on the MLB Network, I heard Don Denkinger, a former major league baseball umpire, tell a very funny story about former Yankee player and current Cubs manager Lou Piniella.