Search Results
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How Wrong are Company Methods to Rank and Compensate Salespeople?
- February 23, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When report cards and grades are available, measuring the academic success of your child or grandchild is a lot easier than it is to measure sales success. School grades go up and we say, “Great effort!” School grades go down and we say, “Oh-oh, something is seriously wrong here!” Academic grades are a reflection of test scores, completed homework and class participation. Sales grades are another story altogether and that is where most companies make terrible, horrible, awful mistakes. Do you think you know what those mistakes are?
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Should a Salesperson be Punished after a Huge Sale?
- May 4, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My wife and I watched with a combination of fascination, sadness and shock as the coach of our son’s 12 and under AAU baseball team made them run suicides after the double header they won on Saturday, and again after the double header they won on Sunday. Why would he punish them after winning four games this weekend? And how does this apply to sales? You’ll be amazed by what you read.
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Closing Sales, Process, Hauntings, Training & More
- March 23, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today I will explore the least-read articles I have ever written. That’s right. The least read. It’s very fashionable – and a best practice – to continue promoting the most-read, most-liked, most-favorited, most-shared, most-tweeted and most-commented articles; but I don’t think anyone has gathered up their worst work and said, “Look at this!” It’s actually not my worst writing.
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Rebuttal to What Elite Salespeople Do Differently
- March 4, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This article appeared through syndication on some other sites. On CustomerThink, an epic discussion followed this introduction and I have included more than 50 comments that appeared there. It started with this comment from Bob Thompson, who also happens to own the CustomerThink website:
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Top 20 Reasons Why Sales Managers Suck at Coaching
- January 14, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The latest interview between Jonathan Farrington, CEO of TopSalesWorld, and me is available here.
We discussed why only 17% of all sales managers are effective at coaching and the conversation was very enlightening.
It only takes 15 minutes to listen to the entire Podcast and you won’t be disappointed.
So why aren’t more sales managers effective at coaching salespeople? Here are my top 19 reasons and I left #20 open so that you could add your two-cents worth.
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The Sales Conversation CEO’s & Sales VP’s Must Have with HR
- January 14, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
HR Directors love our sales candidate assessments because when they finally learn to select the right salespeople, their job becomes easier and they become heroes!
Promises of great success would lead you to believe that this is not a difficult sale, but it doesn’t always go that smoothly.
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Why do so Many Salespeople Fail to Make Quota?
- January 8, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The statistics are staggering. In some sectors, fewer than 25% of all salespeople will make quota in 2012. Even best-in-class companies are lucky when fewer than 80% of their salespeople make quota. Are you OK with it when your own salespeople fail to make quota? There are a number of possible reasons for this widespread mediocrity and failure and, depending on the company, some or all of them may apply.
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Sales Force Architecture
- January 7, 2015
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories:
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Are Sales and Sales Management Candidates Getting Worse?
- January 7, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Selling has changed more in the past 5 years than ever before.
With all that, shouldn’t the quality of sales, sales management and sales leadership candidates be on the rise? Yes, it should.
But there’s a problem. The quality has not risen. It seems to have worsened!
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Top 5 Reasons You Don’t Get More Strong Sales Candidates
- January 7, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Clients frequently ask about the percentage of candidates recommended by Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessment and why it is so low. When clients are feeling the urgency to hire salespeople and too many candidates are not getting recommended, their knee-jerk reaction is to change the customized criteria on the role configuration so that more candidates can be recommended.