Consultative Selling
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Official Guidance for Sales Teams Navigating the 2nd Trump Economy
- January 20, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Let’s discuss how the Trump economy will affect sales organizations.
It will be easier to schedule meetings – hooray!
It may be easier to reach decision makers – that’s awesome! They hide when they aren’t interested in spending.
Sales cycles will be shorter – that’s great news!
But with all that good news, I do have five warnings to share:
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Timing – A Secret Key to Sales Success
- January 9, 2025
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Timing is easy to recognize. When the timing is right anyone who calls can get a meeting scheduled. When the timing is bad, nobody who calls will get a meeting scheduled. Then there are all the occasions in the middle – the timing is neither good nor bad – where by asking the right questions and getting them to recognize they might have an issue you can help with, you do succeed at scheduling a meeting. These are the very meetings you want because early on, they aren’t talking with anyone other than you.
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The Nutcracker and 3 Sales Competencies That Cause Low Win Rates
- December 6, 2024
- 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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3 Keys That Determine the Length of Your Sales Cycle
- November 2, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It’s easier to sell value when there is urgency.
It’s easier to reach the decision maker when there is urgency.
It’s easier to sell value to the decision maker.
It’s easier to create urgency when you are talking with the decision maker.
They are inter-related milestones and they are game changers.
Let’s explore three scenarios:
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Stop the Dysfunction in the Sales Function
- June 17, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
For some reason, a plurality of executives think way too highly of their company’s sales capabilities and believe they will figure it out themselves. Egos and hurt feelings take priority over best practices, right people in the right seats, sales competencies and sales processes.
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Time for Closing Arguments
- May 29, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When salespeople master the abilities to meet and build relationships with decision makers, use a consultative approach to uncover their compelling reasons to buy, sell their personal value to differentiate and throughly qualify, win rates will go from too low to hello!
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Pump it Up for Sales Performance
- May 14, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
A client has a small sales team in the northeastern US. Last week the CEO reconnected with the sales team to check if everyone was selling properly. They weren’t. The team had lost a few customers because a high pressure competitor was stealing their accounts. He initially thought there was a problem with the connections between the sales team and its customers but it was actually a gap in the sales team’s selling skills. The sales team was rusty, having rested on their laurels for years, and the lack of initiative to replace clients they had lost was glaring.
Of course the drama with the sales team could have been avoided and the CEO could have replaced and upgraded the team from the start if he had done these five things:
asked us to evaluate the sales team
checked the pipeline to make sure opportunities were being added
considered the degree to which they underperformed last year
remembered that he had to intervene on a daily basis last year to keep the team motivated
recalled that the team was getting old -
Ominous Signs for Sales Teams and Baseball Can Help
- April 15, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
It seems like a recession is on our doorstep. Most salespeople haven’t experienced selling in a recession since 2009, fifteen years ago. That means there are few experienced recession-proof salespeople, plus those who didn’t figure out how to succeed at recessionary selling back then as well.
What are the twelve biggest challenges?
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Two Keys for Successful Sales Presentations
- October 30, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I frequently write about taking a consultative approach, and listening and asking questions are the keys to successful sales presentations.
While watching game 2 of the 2023 World Series, it occurred to me that I still remember and can name every member of the 1967 Boston Red Sox, but I can’t do the same for the 2023 Red Sox. Could the difference be that the ’67 team went to to the World Series while last year’s team finished last in the American League East? It could also be that I was an impressionable 12 year-old that didn’t miss a single pitch that season, while this year’s team wasn’t worth watching. Could it be my short-term memory? Maybe it’s time to start taking Prevagen!
The point is that while I am fascinated by this insight, there is no chance that you care about this unless you relate to it. It’s simply not important to most of you.
Why is it so important for me to make you aware of a statement that is important to me but not important to you?
Salespeople must differentiate between what is important to their prospects and customers, versus what is important only to them.
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How Building a Stone Walkway Makes the Case for Sales Process
- August 16, 2023
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We can learn a lot about what happens when you skip steps in a sales process by looking at the work this stone crew is doing.