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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  • Discovered – Data Reveals the Second Biggest Obstacle to Closing More Sales

    • May 7, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Whichever way you turn, wherever you look, and whatever you listen to there is data. Polls, surveys, metrics, analytics, analyses, white papers, graphs, charts, infographics, tables, spreadsheets and more. There is data everywhere. 5 of my last 10 articles were based on data and I know that my regular readers love the articles that are based on data so I am writing about data again today.

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  • Discovered – Data Reveals the Biggest Obstacle to Closing More Sales

    • April 30, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Humans have been waiting for thousands of years to discover the secrets of life.  Why are we here?  Why do bad things happen?  What happens after we die?  Is Heaven real?  What is God’s plan for us?

    While many experts have attempted to answer all of these questions, most of us lack proof. There’s no data.  If we wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly there are not only answers to these questions, but science-based proof, that would be a game-changer for us.

    Likewise, every day most companies try to determine why their salespeople don’t close more business, why so many opportunities die on the vine, and what they need to do differently to change their results.  They try everything!  Most leaders think it’s an issue of closing skills.  It’s not.  Others think it’s about prospecting.  While that has an impact on the size and quality of the pipeline, it has little to do with results.  But I have discovered the cause, will show you the data, and discuss how to fix it.

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  • Persistence Over Polish – What the Top 10% of All Salespeople Do Better

    • March 12, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    The best athletes in the world know exactly how they do the things they do that make them so great.  In addition to their God-given talent, they outworked everyone else to master the mechanics and nuances of their sport, the mindset required for greatness, and competed at a high level from a very young age.  When they falter they can easily make the adjustments necessary to get back on track.

    Interestingly, most top salespeople don’t know what it is that they do that makes them so successful! That’s surprise #1.  If you look through the data on the 2,.3 million salespeople that Objective Management Group (OMG) has assessed, you will see that the top 10% of all salespeople have better average scores than their colleagues in each of the 21 Sales Core Competencies.  Their average scores are listed below for 5 Sales Core Competencies in which they have the best scores.  They are:

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  • Predictions for 2018 – The Sales Triad Will Provide Record Sales Growth

    • January 29, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    With and additional competition, I can tell you this.  If you aren’t the low price leader, the best-known company, or the safest decision that a buyer can make, you will have to do some real SELLING to get that business.  And not just selling, but thoughtfully, effectively, efficiently, and articulately selling value.  What?  You already sell value?  Really?  I’ll bet you don’t. 

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  • What You Should Know When Your Cold Prospect Suddenly Returns From the Dead

    • January 15, 2018
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Last week I wrote about the deep freeze, why prospects suddenly go cold, and how you can prevent that from happening. That article was instantly as popular as any I have ever written.  I also posted a 6-minute  cold-calling rant on LinkedIn that had more than five-thousand views after just a couple of days. The video, like the article, was about mindset, not scripting and tactics.  And last week I also posted an article about writing a good prospecting email.  It seems that there was a theme to the week and it resonated really well with the readers.

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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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  • The Perfect Day for a Salesperson – 10 Ways to be More Efficient and Effective in 2018

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

    You can be more effective and more efficient selling in 2018, do every single thing I wrote about in this article, exactly as I wrote it, and without any difficulty, by making a conscious decision to follow this blueprint.  It’s not hard. It’s not scary.  It’s not unusual.  It’s not even thought-provoking.  It’s simply a list of best practices that great salespeople (top 5%) do and that crappy (46%) salespeople either don’t do consistently or don’t do it at all.

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  • Have the Promises of Inbound Sales Come to Fruition?

    • November 14, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Last week, I spoke at Inbound, where 19,000 people attended this sold-out event in Boston.  Ironically, I spoke to a crowd that wanted to learn how to be more effective at engaging prospects by phone and converting those conversations to meetings.  Why is it ironic?  Well, the promise of the Inbound movement is that cold calling is dead. Salespeople will reap the benefits of inbound leads from prospects who had already expressed interest.  Has that happened?

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  • Sales 102 – The Pitch Deck, the Price Reduction and the Data

    • September 29, 2016
    • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
    • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

    Recently I met with a CEO whose salespeople were not closing enough business.  We had just evaluated their sales force and I had the answers as to why their sales were so underwhelming.  Before we could explain what was causing their problem, the CEO said something along the lines of, “We are going to create a new pitch deck and reduce our prices. That will solve the problem!”  

    They weren’t suggesting a small price change either.  It sounded like an 80% reduction and their reasoning overlapped with one of the contributing issues that we identified.  Their salespeople weren’t reaching decision makers which raises more questions.  Why weren’t they reaching decision makers and could anything be done about it?  Would lowering their prices solve the problem or did the issue go deeper than that?

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