Search Results
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FDR and Sir Isaac Newton on Why Salespeople Fail
- August 25, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Unlike the made up fears that prevent salespeople from asking tough questions, qualifying more thoroughly, or picking up the phone and making a cold call, the fear of burning alive in a hotel fire seemed like a pretty justifiable one.
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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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The Real Reason Why So Many Salespeople are So Bad at Selling
- June 8, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In today’s article, I will explain why this problem exists and how it relates to a bigger problem in sales.
The people who don’t return calls are usually technical in nature. The garage door openers, gate electronics, and glass people are all entrepreneurs running small businesses and their expertise is not sales or customer service, it’s their technical subject matter expertise.
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One Thing Your Company Must Do Right Now to Increase Sales
- May 13, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For example, since the 30 million who temporarily lost their jobs are receiving unemployment at more than 100% of what they were earning before, they aren’t facing the hardship the media would lead you to believe and the money is there for a reboot when it comes. But the really good news is for companies that are able to hire salespeople. Consider this!
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Companies Surprised by Unexpected Remote Selling Challenges
- April 9, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Forget Consultative Selling, Value Selling and Sales Process – the things I talk about most often. The inability to sell that way is nothing – and I mean nothing compared with what I’m going to explain today!
For most salespeople and companies, the last three weeks has been an absolute roller coaster. Most companies expect their sales teams to be not only active, but proactive; to replace face-to-face meetings with virtual meetings; and to continue pipeline building so that there is business to close when we return to work. But is that what’s happening? In today’s article, I’ll blend my usual mix of statistics with some personal observation from the clients I have been helping for the past three weeks. I also included three videos that I extracted from a sales training session earlier this week. You’ll be surprised!
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New Data Reveals a Finding That Correlates to Sales Success
- January 29, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We had a request for some data from one of our longtime partners. My knee-jerk reaction to her request was that it would be a big nothing burger. She asked for data that would show the difference between salespeople who are goal oriented and those who are not. I did not expect much of a difference except in the area of Motivation but I was wrong. Very wrong! Check out some of the profound differences this data mining uncovered!
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Is Your Sales Force More Like a Dunkin’, Starbucks or Panera Drive Thru?
- January 21, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This all begs the question, is the sales force at your company more like the Dunkin’, Starbucks, or Panera drive-thru? Today’s article will explain how to answer that question.
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The Science Behind One Company’s Top Sales Performers and Why They’re So Much Better
- January 16, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are comparisons of apples to oranges, red or green, black or white, stop and go, and the most relevant and current of all, liberals to conservatives.
In today’s article, I’ll share a hot/cold comparison of my own, but this one is about sales candidates. Back on January 9, my article about why 3 good salespeople failed and 3 so-so candidates succeeded, used the results of a top/bottom analysis to identify the reasons why.
Those results were unusual because many of the differentiators came from outside the 21 Sales Core Competencies. What does it look like when the differentiators come from within the 21 Sales Core Competencies? Take a look at this top/bottom analysis and you’ll quickly see the difference!
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The Deal Breaker That Prevents you From Hiring a Great Salesperson
- January 13, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the questions we are often asked by HR Directors is, “Can people game the OMG assessment?” Of course they can try, but we have a very effective algorithm that smokes out those who attempt to cheat. It doesn’t happen very often that somebody attempts a big cheat but when it does, it’s almost magical in the way we uncover them.
There is a very small percentage of salespeople who attempt an all out cheat. This unethical group can usually be found in the category of weak salespeople – the bottom 50% – which explains why they think they need to cheat. But what happens if a good salesperson attempts to game the system? What would that look like?
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An Inside Look at Why 3 Good Salespeople Failed and 3 So-So Salespeople Succeeded
- January 9, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You hired a great salesperson that didn’t work out. You hired a so-so salesperson that did work out. You hired another great one that kicked ass, and another one that was so-so. That’s the story of hiring salespeople. It’s mostly hit or miss with an emphasis on miss.
In this article I’m going to share an actual example that illustrates why this happens so frequently. I’ll show you tangible differences between three salespeople who succeeded and three who failed in the same role at the same company.
Most of the time when we perform these analyses the differences are usually seen inside of the 21 Sales Core Competencies – the performers are strong in the necessary competencies and the failures are not.
So let’s dig into some data, shall we?