Search Results

  • Case History – How Not to Hire Salespeople

    • April 2, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A company wants to hire 5000 salespeople – but why?

    2000 drop out before completing training, and another 2000 drop out during the first 90 days in the field. Another 500 drop out during the first 6 months, and at the end of the year they only have 500 of the original 5000 standing.  What would it be worth to them from a cost, time, resources and practicality standpoint for us to simply identify, in advance, the final 500, before anyone is hired?

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  • Great Sales Opportunities That Don’t Close

    • March 2, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If getting opportunities into the pipeline is the most universal sales challenge, then getting opportunities closed comes in a close second. I’m talking about prospects who aren’t ready to say, “yes” but are still “very interested”.  These calls pose problems for salespeople for several reasons:

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  • Mastering Sales and Sales Management

    • February 16, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    We’re talking about Mastery of things you have a passion for.

    Do you and your salespeople have a passion for sales?  What is the thing you do that is equal to repeated listening, watching or practicing? What do you do to know your material cold? Do you attend training as often as you attend concerts, theater or movies?  Do you listen to sales training as often as you listen to music?  You should be getting exposed to the artist (sales expert) at least twice monthly and listening to their recordings (archives or supplemental material) even more often.  In addition, you should be practicing (role playing like our son does) at least 30 minutes per day!

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  • Why Was the Sales Forecast So Unreliable?

    • February 11, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The snow storm never happened. We got an inch – over a 12 hour period – and the state shut down for nothing. And it’s not like we can’t handle a snow storm here in New England. We can handle anything! They just blew it.   How was this forecast similar to the sales forecast?

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  • How to Get Business to Fall From the Sky

    • January 20, 2010
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It’s predictable, phenomenal, and fulfilling. I’m talking about the magic that occurs when you and your salespeople leave their comfort zone and work hard to perform the very activity, behavior and actions which, when left to your own devices, you would choose not to do.  Whether it’s a salesperson who finally:

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  • Ultimate Comparison of Top Salespeople versus Salespeople That Fail

    • December 8, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you’ve been following this Blog you know I sometimes refer to the elite 5% of salespeople, the next 20% and the bottom 74%.  After reading Super Freakonomics I was moved to take a new look at our data on the more than 400,000 salespeople we have assessed.  Behavioral scientists would look at our data on the top 5% and report on some common findings.  It might look like this: 

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  • Lance Armstrong’s Metrics Applied to the Sales Force Equals Results

    • December 4, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recently, I completed Lance Armstrong’s 2001 book on how he became a champion cyclist, was diagnosed with Cancer, beat the cancer, and then returned to become the greatest cyclist in the world.  It was an inspiring, fast-reading book.  While this won’t come as a surprise to my cyclist friends, I was quite surprised to learn how metric-intensive competitive cycling is.

    While training for races, Lance uses a heavy and expensive power meter that measures output (wattage). For the big race, he uses a smaller and lighter top of the line cycling computer to track speed, heart rate, incline, cadence, altitude gain, and power output. He simply adjusts his cycling until the numbers are where they were when he was training at peak performance and he figures the rest will take care of itself. Wow.

    Sales is exactly the same.  You train hard and once the metrics have been established, you simply continue to meet those numbers and the rest will take care of itself.  Simple.

    There are only a few problems with this:

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  • Top 10 Sales Management Functions

    • November 10, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you have been reading my blog for any duration over the last 13 years, the list should not be much of a surprise. 

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  • Objections – 10th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture

    • October 27, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This is the 10th in my series of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That Are Key to Building a Sales Culture.

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  • The Numbers – 8th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That Are Key to Building a Sales Culture

    • October 23, 2009
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This is the 8th in the series of articles based on the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture.

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