Search Results
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Not The Top 20 Attributes of Successful Salespeople
- August 1, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The article was 100% junk science and to use the word science would be a disservice to the word junk. Below, you’ll find five reasons why this article was so wrong, so bad, so misleading, so pitiful, and just plain stupid:
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Do You Know the Accurate Reason Why a Salesperson Is Not Performing?
- April 20, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
How quickly can you determine why a salesperson is failing?
Dinger loves to play catch with his ball. He has seven of them but loves his white ball the most. When we’re out playing catch and I point to a ball and say, “there it is” or “right there” or “get it” he just can’t seem to find it! Dinger has good listening skills but his ability to see the obvious isn’t very good.
Such was the case earlier this week when a surprised client wanted an explanation for why one of their salespeople, who does not perform very well, scored well on his evaluation. “How can someone who is not my top performer score better than someone who is my top performer?”
That sounded like a challenge so I said, “Let’s go!”
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62% Less Turnover and 80% Higher Quota Attainment When You Hire Salespeople the Right Way
- February 3, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you have a sales cycle of several months or more, subsidize your salespeople until they are self-sufficient, and in early 2022 it takes 3 months to find a suitable candidate, you are screwed before you start! Once you finally identify a decent candidate, you have hours, not days or weeks, to make a decision and pull the trigger and what’s the worst that can happen? Six months or more pass before you realize that salesperson won’t make it and you not only wasted a half year’s salary, you lost six months, have an empty territory or vertical, and have to start over from the beginning!
It doesn’t have to be that way and here’s why.
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The Sales Compensation Plan from Hell and How to Improve It
- September 17, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever seen a compensation plan so complicated, so illogical and so detailed that all you could do was stare at it and wonder, WTF?
I did. This week. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. There were several sales groups selling different services to different audiences, several roles in each group, different plans for each role, different percentages, some of the compensation was guaranteed but some was variable and had to be earned by achieving quantitative and qualitative goals consisting of variable weighted goals, some of which were based on revenue while others were based on percentage achievement of goal. The only way to figure it all out was to draw a table on the white board and start filling it in. When we were done it looked like the monstrosity below:
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2020’s Ten Must Read Sales and Sales Leadership Articles
- November 30, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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New Data – Most Sales Managers are a Disaster When it Comes to Coaching
- November 16, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My article about Crappy Sales Managers discussed the low recommendation rates for sales management candidates, why they are so low, and the bigger repercussions of the problem. Speaking of deeper dives, today’s article takes a deeper dive into one of the problems identified in the prior article; crappy sales coaching skills.
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The Problem With Having Crappy Sales Managers
- November 11, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sales Managers underperform at a mind boggling level. Let me show you the degree to which most sales managers are unqualified.
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10 Critical Best Practices for Your Sales Force in This Crisis
- April 27, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
But if the past 6 weeks have taught us anything, it’s that with the right tools, strategies, mindset and tactics, we can adapt and even thrive. For those who may read this after May 1, 2020, the following best practices are based on where we are as I write this on April 27, 2020.
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Companies Surprised by Unexpected Remote Selling Challenges
- April 9, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Forget Consultative Selling, Value Selling and Sales Process – the things I talk about most often. The inability to sell that way is nothing – and I mean nothing compared with what I’m going to explain today!
For most salespeople and companies, the last three weeks has been an absolute roller coaster. Most companies expect their sales teams to be not only active, but proactive; to replace face-to-face meetings with virtual meetings; and to continue pipeline building so that there is business to close when we return to work. But is that what’s happening? In today’s article, I’ll blend my usual mix of statistics with some personal observation from the clients I have been helping for the past three weeks. I also included three videos that I extracted from a sales training session earlier this week. You’ll be surprised!
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New Data Reveals a Finding That Correlates to Sales Success
- January 29, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We had a request for some data from one of our longtime partners. My knee-jerk reaction to her request was that it would be a big nothing burger. She asked for data that would show the difference between salespeople who are goal oriented and those who are not. I did not expect much of a difference except in the area of Motivation but I was wrong. Very wrong! Check out some of the profound differences this data mining uncovered!