Search Results

  • Eliminate Delayed Closings Once and for All

    • May 14, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    A long time ago I realized that in the suburbs outside of Boston, new leaves reach full size each Spring on May 11.  This year, with the cold April we endured, May 11 came and went and the leaves were delayed.

    That said, spring leaves on May 11 are exponentially more predictable than pipeline opportunities.  Why might an opportunity not close when it was forecast to?

    Technically, there are seven possibilities:

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  • Improper Use of BANT Will Cause You to Kill Opportunities

    • April 26, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I received an email asking me to check out an article on the Salesforce.com blog that features an infographic they hoped I would promote.

    The article focuses on the middle of the funnel and the handoff between marketing and sales.  In doing so, they discuss MQL’s (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQL’s (Sales Qualified Leads).  While I don’t have an issue with the infographic, I have huge issues with the content of the article and if you follow the advice in this article, you’ll have far fewer MQL’s that your salespeople can turn into SQL’s.

    Here’s why.

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  • Can Sales Statistics be Bad and Good at the Same Time?

    • February 21, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I received two pieces of bad news relative to statistics.  

    The first is about my award-winning Blog.  It seems that readers stay with an article for an average of only one-minute or so.  That means that most readers don’t finish the article, fail to get to my summary, and often don’t read long enough to get my point.  Basically, everything that comes after the fourth paragraph is not being read.  This could also be good news.  It could mean that I can actually write shorter articles and that would be great for me!

    The other piece of bad news relates to my award-winning sales training company, Kurlan & Associates.  I reviewed 5 years worth of statistics on opportunities that weren’t closed and it seems that prospects were 6 times more likely to do nothing than to do business with a competitor.  We don’t lose very often and I can count on two hands the number of opportunities I have personally lost in the past 5 years.  But it’s one thing to rarely lose, and another to learn that 6 times more often than not, a company failed to act.   But these statistics are very misleading. Let me explain why.

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  • 7 Reasons Why Prospects Go Cold and How to Avoid it

    • January 5, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    If you change your perspective about prospects going cold, you might discover that you caused them to go cold, rather than the myriad of other possibilities.  I’ll explain.

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  • How to Write a Sales Email That Works

    • January 3, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I receive so many unsolicited emails each day that it makes my head spin.  Most of them, like the cold calls I get, are simply horrible.  Delete.  Delete.  Delete.  Junk.  Block.  Unsubscribe.

    This week I received the daily double – a cold call with an identical, corresponding email.  The email read like this:

    Hi Dave, 

    I hope this message finds you well.

    We spoke in the past regarding the copier equipment in your office.  At the time you indicated that your existing contract will be ending just over a year from now.  Have you started to look into this yet?  Our company would love a shot to earn your business.

    I’ll go through this line by line and explain what’s horrible, what’s OK and how I would change it.

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  • More Fake News in Sales Organizations Than on TV Networks!

    • December 13, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Most of your salespeople are just like fake news and I will prove it.  I’m not talking about the elite top 5% or the next group of 15% who are very strong.  I am referring to the bottom 46% of the sales population who, if I am to be completely honest, totally suck. If yours is like most companies, then half of its salespeople fit this description.

    I’m going to show you exactly how your salespeople report fake news but first, we need to break down how fake news happens so that I can demonstrate how your weak salespeople do the exact same thing, every chance they can get.

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  • 7 Powerful Exercises to Up Your Sales to the Next Level

    • May 8, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Today, I received yet another request asking if I would recommend how to use the exercises in the Baseline Field Guide with the book, Baseline Selling.  In an effort to help everyone, and not just those who choose to write me, my recommendations on some powerful ways to correlate the two appear below.

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  • New Analysis Shows the 5 Biggest Gaps Between Top and Bottom Sales Performers

    • May 1, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    It didn’t take very long for this to happen.  When Objective Management Group (OMG) announced that it was making its findings data available to the public, we knew that it wouldn’t take long for someone with a flair for analytics to dig in and come up with something cool.  Last week, John Cousineau, creator of Amacus, got me on a video conference and shared what he came up with.  Hint:  Another way to differentiate top performers.

    He

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  • Veteran’s Great Quote Makes News and Has Terrific Lessons for the Sales Profession

    • February 21, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    I might not have nailed his quote word for word, but I’m sure I captured the gist of it. Just think of the sales lessons that can be taken from this!  The short video below is from the interview and below that I will share some lessons for the sales profession.

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  • 10 Selling Scenarios When You Must Slow Down

    • February 7, 2017
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Rick Porcello’s thoughts about the importance of slowing down in certain situations and focusing on the present apply to the following 10 sales and sales leadership scenarios.  Slow down:

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