Search Results
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Exposing the DIY Sales Organization
- April 22, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When it comes to the ten best practices for sales organizations, most CEOs, CROs, CSOs, and Sales Managers lack the expertise in much the same way I lack the expertise to professionally construct landscaping, built-in cabinetry, and even Smoothies. We can do those things, but the DIY work product pales in comparison to a professional’s work product.
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Was the Easter Sermon About Salespeople?
- April 1, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As someone who for thirty-eight years has led a sales consultancy specializing in sales, sales management and sales leadership training, I can easily say the exact same things about people “who belong” to the sales profession. They should be attending at least weekly training. They should be practicing their profession as we practice our faith. They should be reading about sales. But most in the sales profession are content to sit on the sidelines, and attend training only when the company forces them to. More and more, we are seeing:
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Opportunity Blindness – What’s in Your Sales Pipeline?
- February 28, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Some observations:
The data represents the forecast and funnel for 7 sales teams.
The gaps (A & G) are backwards and should say 72% (A) and 41% (G).
The quarterly forecast (C) is 58% short of the quarterly target (D).
The current closable opportunities (B) are 77% short of the forecast (C) and 90% short of the quarterly target (D).
Add columns G and H and together, all of those columns represent pathetic, old news.The question that should be asked is, “What can we do about this?”
We should be able to answer that question by looking at column F but that’s not possible. Can you see why?
Outside of telling us that there isn’t enough in the funnel, the data in column F doesn’t answer the question that must always be asked: Is the pipeline viable?
We know the assigned value of the pipeline but we don’t know the answers to these additional ten important factors:
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Don Kent and My 8 Reasons For Inaccurate Sales Forecasts
- February 15, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
1960’s Don Kent is like a 2020’s salesperson. Excited about an opportunity, but wrong. And they don’t have to be wrong, shouldn’t be wrong, and honestly, can’t be wrong. The 2020’s salesperson may not have computer models, but they do have technology and it’s not the technology getting the forecast wrong. It’s the salesperson. There are a number of reasons they get so excited and get it so wrong but here are eight good ones:
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Movie Contrasts the Best and Worst Salespeople
- November 14, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We watched GameStop: Rise of the Players and despite it being a documentary, found it to be quite entertaining. It was David versus Goliath. It was Amateur versus Professional. It was about an improbable outcome accomplished by people who were unlikely to succeed and even more unlikely to win the big payoff.
While I thought it had a lot in common with selling, the twelve central figures:
Were not professional investors although they did invest in GameStop.
Were not skilled traders although they did conduct some research.
Did not trade as a full-time job or hobby.
Were making decisions based on hunches, not history or science.
Found in each other kindred souls with a shared passion for GameStop.The five statements above suggest that skills, attributes, competencies and capabilities were NOT part of their success so what could this possibly have in common with selling?
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Three Recent Hurricanes Show the Path to More Effective Selling
- September 18, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A great example of how much more successful salespeople are when they call on Decision Makers came from a salesperson who messaged me last week. Freddy was excited to talk about his recent success and I have changed his name and company names to protect his identity. Freddy wrote:
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Top 15 Categories of Reading to Improve Sales Team Effectiveness
- August 21, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Bookmark this article so that over time, if you want to improve your sales effectiveness, you can read articles from the topics listed below
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Sometimes The Biggest Sales Problems Have the Simplest Solutions
- May 30, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are simple, easy, fast and powerful solutions for sales problems too. See my examples below.
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Derek Baer, Vice President, Corporate Training
- March 23, 2023
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories:
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The Science of Predicting Sales Turnover
- March 1, 2023
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories:
Between 1985 and 2010, my continued research, assessments, studies and analyses of more than 500,000 salespeople and sales managers, has yielded consistent, predictive recommendations about the performance of salespeople.