accountability
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When the Weak Economy Collides with Ineffective Salespeople
- March 26, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
As the daily stories of economic woes continue to be featured in the headlines, most companies have their own version of the current economy and its affect on them. From the perspective of the sales force, we help overhear your salespeople returning from calls with objections like:
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Focused Sales Efforts Temporarily Improve Sales Competencies
- March 10, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Every company has people whose sales competencies are not fully developed. Perhaps their salespeople don’t find enough new opportunities. Maybe they don’t ask for referrals often enough. It’s possible that opportunities languish in the pipeline for too long. There are a number of reasons for results like these, from weaknesses that prevent your salespeople from performing as desired, to sales management’s ineffective motivation, setting of expectations, coaching and accountability.
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New Salespeople – Realistic Expectations
- March 6, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
You’ve seen new salespeople start out and inside of 60 days, build a pipeline to be proud of. You’ve had some that started and couldn’t seem to book appointments without your coaching. You’ve had some that were able to close some new business sooner than anyone expected. You’ve had some who couldn’t get started because they didn’t want to speak with a prospect until they knew they could carry off a perfect phone conversation. You’ve had some who never got started at all. Why all this variation?
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More on Push Back from Sales Assessments
- February 29, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday’s post generated a number of emails – mostly good. But one particular question that was raised deserves a post of its own. The reader asked, “why are your assessments so black and white?” and “why isn’t more attention paid to the strengths and skills?” and “why can’t they be like other assessments which take more of a neutral position?”
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Sales Force Evaluation – How to Deal with Push Back from your Employees
- February 28, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Push back is what your salespeople give you when they receive the results of their evaluation. Push back is what you get from your sales managers when they get the results of the evaluation of their sales force. I’ve written about push back before but I need to explain why you get push back.
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Managing the Sales Force – The Calendar
- February 20, 2008
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Your all day event cancels, leaving you with nothing scheduled today. You could:
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How Shake Up Calls Improve Sales Performance
- December 18, 2007
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s talk about your sales force. Who needs to be shaken up? What are you unhappy with? When will you tell them? Which approach will you take? Will you address the issue sooner, or later?
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What if Sales Forces Were Outsourced to China?
- December 17, 2007
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Can you imagine if our sales forces were outsourced to China too? Geez!
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Excuse Making in the Sales Organization
- November 30, 2007
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the things we see in far too many sales organizations is a culture of Excuse Making. The problem is that when beginning a sales development initiative, nothing changes until the Excuse Making stops!
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Top 10 Articles for Growing Sales
- November 28, 2007
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I thought it would be a good idea to point you to my top articles for growing sales. Some of you haven’t been reading this Blog since the beginning, and the best articles are not necessarily the most recent nor the most popular, so it’s pretty difficult to identify them from the 400 plus posts I’ve compiled in the last four years.