Search Results
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2021 Challenge: Put a Little Beatles Into Your Selling!
- January 4, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The only thing that would make the Beatles different today is technology. The sound quality would be SO much better. It wouldn’t change their songs but the songs would sound better. It wouldn’t eliminate the work they did to write the songs but they would get the songs transcribed and notated more quickly. They would still have to record their music but the recording would be digital which would make mixing much easier.
Isn’t this all pretty much the same as sales? Let’s take a run-through.
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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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3 Selling Characteristics for the Age of Covid, Politics and Recession
- September 8, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Thanks to the non-stop political news cycle, I went from averaging just over one article that mentioned politics per year to two!
This article will be different. For the first time in fourteen years of blogging, I am going to share what I think, uncensored, and despite some concern for what you think, not quite enough concern to stop me from writing about it. There will still be a sales tie-in so stay with me as I build the case for 3 powerful sales characteristics.
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15 Things Salespeople Must Do to Make up for a Lackluster 2nd Quarter
- August 12, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Last week we moved our son into his dorm to begin his freshman year of college. The college President’s opening remarks were virtual, so we joined the Zoom stream from our hotel room and listened in. He had some really useful things to share with the new freshmen and while his thoughts were targeted to the students, they apply quite equally to salespeople.
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How to Achieve Sales Mastery – A Collection of Loosely Connected Thoughts
- July 6, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During our first of its kind Independence Day weekend, I thought about a lot of things that loosely tied into sales effectiveness and while they could all be articles in their own right, I decided to write one article tying them all together.
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3 Steps You Must Take Today to Save Your Company From This Economic Downturn
- March 12, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You know the stories of the Three Stooges, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Bears, and baseball fans have just heard about The Three Batter Minimum (how stupid!). We’re not going to discuss any of those threes today but we will talk about the three things companies must do, right now, in this quickly disintegrating economy, to drive revenue.
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The Top 15 Sales and Sales Leadership Articles of 2019
- December 4, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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How All Those Trucks on the Road Can Help You Stop Discounting
- August 5, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I have an awful lot to say about incentives to buy!
The occurrences are as predictable as the 6pm news beginning exactly at 6pm. If you have opportunities in the pipeline during the last week of the month, the last week of the quarter and the last two weeks of the year, and your prospects showed a strong likelihood of moving forward, they’ll be sitting back waiting for a call from a salesperson or sales manager to sweeten the pot so that you can get this deal in before the end of whenever. How lame. -
Your Last Chance to Make a Good First Impression
- June 14, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Most salespeople don’t take first impressions seriously enough. If they did, their first impressions would be much more favorable.
I can still remember my first (unintentional) lesson about first impressions. My family was gathered at my grandfather’s house to watch the debut of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan show. It was February 9, 1964 and at 8 years old, I was one of seventy-three million people watching the show that night. I was as excited about this show as I would be later that same year when I attended my first Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park. That is pretty excited!
Sitting on the carpet, I was completely focused on seeing and hearing The Beatles play five of their hit songs, but my mother was doing color commentary from the plastic covered sofa behind me.
She said, “He’s cleaner than the other 3”, referring to Paul McCartney, who had straighter teeth, and a face more suitable for the mop top hair style shared by the four of them.
There it was, my first lesson in judging people by how they looked, and more specifically, what “clean” did and did not look like.
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Win a Free Coaching Call with Dave Kurlan and 4 More Prizes
- June 12, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
By the middle of June each year, we tend to know who the best of the best are. Super Bowl Champion, NBA Champion, Stanley Cup Winner, Masters Winner, and in baseball, MLB all-stars are being selected. It’s as good a time as any to recognize the best readers of Understanding the Sales Force!