Search Results
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2 Selling Shortcuts That Will Always Work
- April 22, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do shortcuts work in sales?
I can tell you that shortcuts work when you’re driving a car and need either a more direct route to your destination or a route that avoids traffic. Waze helps a lot with that!
Shortcuts work in math when you know what the formula is and how to use it.
But shortcuts in sales? Not usually. Watch this 1:30 video on sales shortcuts and then I’ll share two scenarios where shortcuts can actually be used.
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Speed Limits, the Flow of Traffic, and Sales Pipelines
- November 19, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I don’t get stressed anymore when I’m driving. All it took was for me to not exceed the speed limit. I’m not sure whether it was my navigation system repeatedly telling me to “obey all traffic laws” each time I started the car, or my wife reminding me that I needed to be a good role model for our soon-to-be driving 16 year-old son. I admit that this was much easier for me to do after I gave up my Jaguar for a Lincoln Navigator. It holds much more baseball equipment!
There is an exception to not exceeding the speed limit. When the flow of traffic in all lanes is moving exponentially faster than you are, you must increase your speed to match the flow of traffic or risk getting run over!
That brings me to pipeline flow.
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The Top 12 Factors that Cause Delayed Closings and What to Do About Them
- September 25, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Delays, delays, delays. Nearly every coaching call with a salesperson is about a delayed closing. Nearly every coaching call with a sales manager is about a salesperson with a delayed closing. Everyone wants to know what to do about the delayed closing but that’s the wrong question. Everyone should be asking these two questions instead.
Was it really delayed or were we overly optimistic about if and when this opportunity would close?
What steps can we take to prevent delayed closings? -
Elite Salespeople are 200% Better in These 3 Sales Competencies
- July 23, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Professional athletes have one trait in common – they are all very athletic and their skills are among the top several hundred in the world in their particular sport. For example, in Major League Baseball, there are 30 teams with 25 players each, making those ball players the top 750 in the world. Dig a little deeper and in each sport there is an even smaller subset of players who are all-stars
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The Perfect Day for a Salesperson – 10 Ways to be More Efficient and Effective in 2018
- December 8, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You can be more effective and more efficient selling in 2018, do every single thing I wrote about in this article, exactly as I wrote it, and without any difficulty, by making a conscious decision to follow this blueprint. It’s not hard. It’s not scary. It’s not unusual. It’s not even thought-provoking. It’s simply a list of best practices that great salespeople (top 5%) do and that crappy (46%) salespeople either don’t do consistently or don’t do it at all.
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Getting Your Calls Returned
- January 19, 2015
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories: Monthly Tips, Tactics - Getting to 1st Base (Appointments)
About two years ago I published this tip with the most effective way to leave a voice mail message and get it returned. Read the tip before proceeding.
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The Latest and Greatest in Sales Force Effectiveness
- January 12, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Spoiler Warning: This article is about my company and its new product. Stick around though and I think you’ll realize that it’s just as much about your company as it is mine.
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Achieve More Accurate Forecasts and Sales Results Today
- November 12, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week, a new client was explaining how he called several of the nearly 300 opportunities that one salesperson had in his pipeline. My client identified 7 opportunities that had no recent activity, but had been in the pipeline for several months and were supposed to close. Imagine my client’s surprise when:
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How Frequently Does Fear Play a Part in Sales?
- November 6, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Fear of failing doesn’t affect everyone that sells. The elite 6% are certainly immune to it, and most of the next 20% aren’t affected too much by it either. But the remaining 74% – the group that basically sucks – battles the fear of failing on a daily basis.
That fear – and most salespeople aren’t even consciously aware of it – prevents them from
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Baseball and Selling Revisited – A Powerful Analogy
- June 12, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A salesperson tells you about a great-looking opportunity that has been forecast to close this month. “We’re definitely getting this and it’s an awesome opportunity for us. We’re going to knock this one out of the park!”
At the end of the month, the deal hasn’t closed and you question your salesperson about it. You are told that the decision-maker has been away on vacation, but as soon as he returns, the deal is sure to get done.
A month later, nothing has changed. This time, the salesperson admits that he has had a little difficulty reaching the decision-maker, but he is sure that nothing has changed. You are assured that everything is good.
Six months later, when the deal still hasn’t closed, you force the salesperson to archive the opportunity with the salesperson still not understanding what went wrong.