Search Results
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How to Sell to Major Accounts That Love Your Competitor
- October 23, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Salespeople tend to take their best accounts for granted. They don’t call as often as they should. They don’t visit as often as they could. You need to be there and/or on the phone with them more often than the salesperson they like so much. Something is bound to go wrong. Something is likely to disappoint your prospect. That’s your opportunity to change the conversation.
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The Latest Perspective on My Most Popular Article on Selling
- December 20, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During a first sales call, suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, “This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this.” And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, “We’ll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we’ve made.” And still a third might say, “In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and timeline.”
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The Bob Chronicles – The Difference Between Selling Skills and Effectiveness
- October 12, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today a client asked me to explain the difference between skills and effectiveness. You won’t find the answer by doing a Google search as that search turns up exactly nothing on the subject. This article will discuss the similarity between symptoms/causes and skills/effectiveness. Do you remember Bob, the subject of many articles and my favorite weak salesperson to write about?
Bob strikes again!
I’ve written 10 articles about Bob and everyone says that the Bob series is their favorite.
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How Much Has Video Impacted the Way We Sell?
- June 23, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In March, most salespeople were very uncomfortable conducting their business over video. Look at this article I wrote about video as recently as November! Yet today, just three months later, 49% of salespeople prefer video to a phone call and another 28% don’t have a preference. That’s quite a change!
So how do salespeople feel about video?
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Are You Using This New Technology to Generate New Opportunities?
- November 13, 2019
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Do you have Rainbow flatware? Biomagnetic ear stickers? A diamond-shaped ice cube tray? Baby feather wings? Yah, these things exist here. You don’t? Me neither.
Have you signed up to use a company that uses AI to generate leads for you? You haven’t? Me neither.
It seems to me that the only companies using AI to generate leads are the companies trying to sell you their services using AI to generate leads. How ironic!
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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!
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Data Shows That Only 14% are Qualified for the Easiest Selling Roles
- November 15, 2018
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Lays Potato Chips. Movie Theater Popcorn. Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. BBQ Ribs. Fudge Brownies. Rolos (a personal favorite from years ago). All junk food which, after having the first one, you just can’t stop there. You must have more. Lays even had that as a slogan back in the late 60’s – “Bet you can’t eat just one.” Back then I couldn’t stop at one.
Last week I wrote an article that said companies are hiring the wrong salespeople 77% of the time. It was very popular and there was a great discussion on LinkedIn but similar to the junk food, you couldn’t read that one article and move to another subject. You need to have some more.
That article was filled with data to illustrate the differences between good salespeople versus those who actually get hired most of the time. It was ugly and there were questions about the 77% like, “Where does that come from?”
Some of the supporting data came from the CSO Insights 2018 Sales Talent Study. Some of it came from Objective Management Group’s evaluations and assessments of 1.8 million salespeople. And I’m going to show you some data that most people never get to see. Take a look at these wild numbers!
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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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10 [More] Tips to Help You Sell More and Get More Done Than Anyone Else Part 2
- January 5, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
To start the year off I posted My Top 10 Tips to Help you Sell More and Get More Done Than Anyone Else. I received so many thank you notes and emails expressing appreciation for that post that I decided to share 10 more tips for those who have the capacity to become even more efficient.
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A Bit of Holiday Tradition to Spice up your Selling
- December 5, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
What is your favorite part of the holiday season? Do you have traditions that you follow every December? For the past 15 years an important part of our holiday season is going to see the Boston Ballet perform the Nutcracker. You wouldn’t think that a show like the Nutcracker would correlate to selling, but it does. As a matter of fact, if you read a little further, you’ll see that the Nutcracker is very much like selling to a major account!