Search Results
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Top Sales & Sales Leadership Articles of 2024
- December 12, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you’ve been reading this Blog for more than a couple of years, or since 2006, then you know that every December I post the best articles of the past year. This year there are five articles listed in the category of best Sales Leadership articles, there are ten articles listed in the category of best sales articles of the year, and five more that are my personal favorites. Additionally, I listed the top five video rants of 2024 to give you a bit more value while you are here.
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Everything About Baseline Selling on One Page
- December 11, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
On this page you’ll find everything you always wanted to know about how to get Baseline Selling content and training – all in one place.
Baseline Selling is a proprietary sales process and methodology that Dave Kurlan developed in 2005. It uses the metaphor of the baseball diamond to visualize the sales process and any corporate sales process can be overlaid, integrated or married to it, making it the most flexible sales process ever to be introduced.
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New Competency Has 10 Attributes for Post 2024 Sales Success
- November 18, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Uncategorized, Understanding the Sales Force
The problem is not that prospects and customers expect you to lie, the problem is that they wonder if you are being truthful, especially when it sounds too good to be true or they believe you are telling them what they want to hear.
Thank God that Larry Levine wrote and published Selling in a Post Trust World earlier this year! That’s a book that will help you adapt to these changing times. Another book that will have you selling more and selling with integrity is my timeless book, Baseline Selling-How to Become a Sales Superstar.
In addition to the 21 Sales Core Competencies that are current best practices, I officially recommend the following ten, additional, post 2024 selling attributes:
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How I Learned I am a Sales Consulting Imposter
- November 11, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I didn’t like this candidate. He was way too cocky and aggressive, he wasn’t prepared, and he didn’t like all of my questions. I ended the call after about a minute and a half because I already knew he wasn’t going to proceed in the process. I told him that if he didn’t hear back from me by the end of business on the following day, then he didn’t make it to the next round (an interview with me).
Considering the findings on his OMG assessment, imagine what could happen if he felt rejected from the way I ended the call, and when he didn’t get the follow up call the next day. Consider how his lack of patience, along with not being a relationship builder and not needing to be liked, could manifest.
Did you imagine what could happen?
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Could Lost Deals Correlate with Sales Success?
- September 20, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I love looking for correlations and causation and we use causation to build predictive sales scorecards. Nobody closes 100% of their closable opportunities but with a properly constructed scorecard, you’ll know the opportunities on which to devote your resources, and which opportunities would be best to lose as fast as you can.
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Baby Fish and New Salespeople Experience the Same Fate
- August 1, 2024
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If your turnover is less than 10% you have a turnover problem – not enough turnover! If your turnover is between 10-20% you’re good. If it’s greater than 20% it’s worth exploring what is contributing to your high turnover rate and how to fix it. Sometimes it’s because you are hiring the wrong salespeople. Sometimes it’s lack of effective onboarding, lack of effective sales training, lack of coaching, lack of accountability, or lack of leadership.
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How Practice Can Increase Sales and Commissions by 33%
- July 9, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Uncategorized, Understanding the Sales Force
According to data from more than 2.5 million salespeople assessed by Objective Management Group (OMG), only 72% of all salespeople are committed to their sales success and if we look at the largest population – the weakest 50% – only a little more than half of that group are committed. Why would they practice?
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Stop the Dysfunction in the Sales Function
- June 17, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For some reason, a plurality of executives think way too highly of their company’s sales capabilities and believe they will figure it out themselves. Egos and hurt feelings take priority over best practices, right people in the right seats, sales competencies and sales processes.
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Winning and Retaining Business When There is Competition
- April 30, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We were away for most of April, watching our son play his senior year of college baseball. When we left Massachusetts, the calendar said early April, the grass and gardens were still dormant and the weather felt like mid-January with some games played in 25-degree wind chills!
When we returned home three weeks later, we looked outside and saw life! Flowers were in bloom, the Bradford Pears and Crab Apple trees had blossoms, and the green grass had already been mowed a couple of times. Although we weren’t there, nature did its thing without us.
Pivot to sales.
It doesn’t matter whether salespeople are in account management or account executive roles. The sales equivalent of nature at work occurs at both target accounts and existing accounts. When salespeople aren’t physically present or on the phone with decision makers at the account, it is likely that one of their competitors is physically present or on the phone competing for the business or trying to take their business away. Just because a salesperson doesn’t see or hear about it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
What can you do?
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250 Best Articles on Sales and Sales Leadership by Category
- April 4, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
These are the top 10 articles in 25 categories on sales, sales leadership, sales assessments, sales performance, sales excellence, sales process and more.