Search Results

  • Selling and the Need for Speed

    • June 8, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Salespeople tend to be in a rush to close – before an opportunity is even closable.  

    Salespeople tend to be in a rush to present – before an opportunity is even qualified.  Most salespeople are in such a hurry that they completely skip things like qualifying and discovery.  And when salespeople do perform discovery they accept the very first indicator they hear and rush to explain how their product or service addresses that indicator.

    read more

  • The Recession is Here – How to Take Advantage and Prepare Your Sales Team

    • May 31, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    So what must you do to prepare your sales team and how can you leverage the effects of a recession?

    read more

  • 5 Steps to Grow Sales by 33% in 12 Months

    • May 11, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Sales teams go through periods like this too but sales leaders rarely seek out the data that would immediately point to the real problem.  They tend to hope things will improve and go from there. However, there are several levels of data to be reviewed so let’s take a look.

    As the article title suggests, there are five steps you must take to grow sales by 33% in 12 months.  You can’t pick and choose as all five are required.

    read more

  • The Philosophy of a Pitching Coach Will Improve Your Sales Team

    • April 4, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I find ideas and material for this Blog everywhere, especially when I’m not looking for them. Yesterday I received a daily email from a Paul Reddick, a baseball coach who was drumming up some business for his baseball institute. It resonated – not for its baseball coaching – but as sales coaching.  Here’s what it said:

    If your coach is talking about any of the pitching flaws that you see listed above…

    Run… Run Fast!

    That Coach is working on “flaws” that will have no impact on your pitching.  He is working on symptoms… not the illness!  He is trying to fix things that are happening as a byproduct of incorrect movement early in your delivery. If you get the first second of your delivery right, almost all of these flaws get fixed instantly. 

    Do you know how this applies to sales? 

    I’ll explain exactly how it applies and I promise you will be surprised!  Click here to read last year’s fun article comparing pitcher’s fielding practice (PFP) to role-playing in sales.

    read more

  • Top Sales Videos and Rants From Dave Kurlan

    • March 21, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    From time to time I record impromptu unscripted rants as well as some that are more well thought-out videos.  From among the collection presented below, most are rants so the rants are much more popular.  The most-watched (I have added to the list so there are more than 10 now!) videos are shown below in order of popularity and while I like all of them, I indicated my personal favorites with an asterisk.  All but three of the videos are three-minutes or less, one is six-minutes, one is ten-minutes and one is eight-minutes.  Topics include:

    read more

  • How to Prepare for the Coming Sales Team Super Storm

    • September 22, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    My first reaction was that this must have been something from 2016 – right before the boom that lasted until the pandemic slammed the economy to the ground.  Or, from the 4th quarter of 2020, when we expected the economy to come roaring back.  But it simply can’t be something that is remotely relevant to what we are about to experience.  Here’s what we know, and how that will impact companies and their sales teams in 2022.

    read more

  • Follow This Advice to Schedule More Meetings and Spend Less Time Doing It

    • August 25, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Regular readers know that I’m all about the data and I have written nearly two thousand articles based on data from Objective Management Group’s (OMG) assessments of more than two million salespeople.  Occasionally however, I see data where incorrect conclusions have been reached and like the toad on the window, my conclusions run counter to theirs.  One such example is a beautiful infographic from sales playbook company Xant. I am going to share some of their data, graphics and conclusions and I’ll provide my counter argument to their conclusions.

    read more

  • A Home Run – How the Right Data Can Help You Hire Your Ideal Salespeople

    • July 13, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    From time to time I’ve posted some compelling top/bottom sales team analyses using sales assessment data from Objective Management Group (OMG).  From nearly 250 data points in 21 Sales Core Competencies, we identify the specific findings and scores that differentiate a company’s top 3 performers from their bottom 3 non-performers.

    There are several reasons for doing this:

    read more

  • The Bob Chronicles Part 5 – Bob Can’t Win This Argument Over a Sales Core Competency

    • June 22, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    OMG has assessed more than 2 million salespeople and measures their sales capabilities in 21 Sales Core Competencies.  While some might not like their scores, most salespeople agree with our findings because they are extremely accurate.  However, there is one competency of the 21 that causes salespeople to dig in, disagree, and push back.  Today I will explain the competency and share yesterday’s conversation with Bob.  For new readers, and those who don’t remember, Bob tends to get himself into trouble and is representative of all weak salespeople.

    read more