Search Results

  • Has Buying Changed and Has B2B Selling Adapted?

    • January 5, 2022
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today’s buyers are self-educated and salespeople mistake that knowledge for readiness. Salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance and the knowledge they mistake for readiness lulls them into the quote, proposal and order taking mode.  As a result, they don’t follow their company’s sales process or worse, the company’s sales process has been modified to reflect buyers being ready.  If the buyers were truly ready at this point they would actually buy but the additional options prolong instead of shorten the sales process.

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  • Top 10 Sales and Sales Leadership Articles of 2021

    • December 7, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are several criteria for choosing the top articles of the year, including, but not limited to:

    Views (Article)
    Popularity (likes on LinkedIn and Twitter)
    Engagement (comments to the article, via email, and on LinkedIn)
    Personal (my favorites)
    Value (insights for the community)

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  • Crappy Salespeople and Lack of Urgency Alignment  – The Bob Chronicles Part 4

    • April 27, 2021
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This is the fourth installment in the Bob Chronicles.  Bob is the weak salesperson who represents the bottom 50% of all salespeople. You can read previous installments about Bob below:

    The $225,000 Mistake That Most Salespeople Make

    Data – The Top Salespeople are 631% More Effective at This Than Weak Salespeople 

    Good Bob, Bad Bob, The Stockdale Paradox and Sales Success

    You’re probably wondering, what did Bob screw up this time?  He screwed up urgency.  You might be asking how a salesperson could possibly screw up urgency but Bob and the rest of the weak salespeople screw up just about everything else so why not urgency too?

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  • Senate Confirmation Hearings Shows Us What Salespeople Do Wrong Every Day

    • October 12, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Oh no, another post on the political climate.  Don’t worry, I’m not taking sides, I’ll be right down the middle, and very critical of both sides.  And stay with me for the pivot to the good stuff – my sales analysis.  Here goes!

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  • How to Achieve Sales Mastery – A Collection of Loosely Connected Thoughts

    • July 6, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    During our first of its kind Independence Day weekend, I thought about a lot of things that loosely tied into sales effectiveness and while they could all be articles in their own right, I decided to write one article tying them all together.

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  • The Science Behind One Company’s Top Sales Performers and Why They’re So Much Better

    • January 16, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives.

    In today’s article, I’ll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates.  Back on January 9, my article about why 3 good salespeople failed and 3 so-so candidates succeeded, used the results of a top/bottom analysis to identify the reasons why.  

    Those results were unusual because many of  the differentiators came from outside the 21 Sales Core Competencies.  What does it look like when the differentiators come from within the 21 Sales Core Competencies?  Take a look at this top/bottom analysis and you’ll quickly see the difference!

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  • An Inside Look at Why 3 Good Salespeople Failed and 3 So-So Salespeople Succeeded

    • January 9, 2020
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    You hired a great salesperson that didn’t work out.  You hired a so-so salesperson that did work out.  You hired another great one that kicked ass, and another one that was so-so.  That’s the story of hiring salespeople.  It’s mostly hit or miss with an emphasis on miss.

    In this article I’m going to share an actual example that illustrates why this happens so frequently.  I’ll show you tangible differences between three salespeople who succeeded and three who failed in the same role at the same company.

    Most of the time when we perform these analyses the differences are usually seen inside of the 21 Sales Core Competencies – the performers are strong in the necessary competencies and the failures are not.

    So let’s dig into some data, shall we?

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  • The Top 15 Sales and Sales Leadership Articles of 2019

    • December 4, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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  • Squirrels Explain the Differences Between Top and Bottom Salespeople

    • October 28, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    This morning I was watching 3 squirrels each doing their thing.

    Squirrel #1, who I named Ernest, was finding lots of nuts and burying them.  His nest was full and he will reap the benefits of his hard work over the winter.

    Squirrels #2 and #3, who I named MT and LayZ, were playing.  They were running up and down tree trunks, jumping from limb to limb, running in circles and generally chasing their tails.  They don’t yet have nests and unless they make a commitment, become disciplined, and get to work, they will starve to death this winter.

    Ernest, MT and LayZ are no different than their human counterparts who find themselves in sales roles.  The top salespeople are like Ernest and the bottom salespeople are like MT and LayZ.  For evidence of that claim, take a look at the table below with a sprinkling of data from Objective Management Group (OMG) which has evaluated 1,910,915 salespeople from  companies.

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  • The Best Salespeople are 791% Better at This Than Weak Salespeople

    • July 17, 2019
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The first contractor got a proposal to us within a few days, the second contractor got a proposal to us later the same day and the third contractor gave us a price on the spot.  On the responsive scale, the third contractor was the best. 

    Certainly, responsiveness is not the only criteria that prospects weigh as part of their decision-making process.    They may also consider:

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