Consultative Selling
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Which is Worse – The Boston Red Sox or Your Sales Team?
- August 23, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The construction of the Red Sox roster is simply a Stupid as Shit Strategy or SaSS. Use of the word strategy means that it’s intentional and is a disservice to the word stupid!
Sales team construction usually lacks formal strategy and that suggests something accidental is at play. We tend to see the “we already had these salespeople” and then “these are the new salespeople who were willing to work for us.” New is a relative term as the newest 30% of the team continues to churn when and if they find candidates.
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Can My Car Uncover Sales Qualification Criteria Better Than Most Salespeople?
- August 8, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Wouldn’t it be great if salespeople had the equivalent of two camera intelligence to see what they don’t know they need to see?
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Big Company Strategies That SMB Sales Teams Can Emulate
- July 11, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I know. The previous paragraph was about branding and marketing; not sales. But there is a correlation to my theory that a slick, professionally designed logo, makes you look bigger and more successful. Give me a moment to explain how that applies to sales.
If a professionally designed logo makes you look bigger, more successful, and provides credibility, wouldn’t the same theory apply to a professionally trained sales team?
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Selling and the Need for Speed
- June 8, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Salespeople tend to be in a rush to close – before an opportunity is even closable.
Salespeople tend to be in a rush to present – before an opportunity is even qualified. Most salespeople are in such a hurry that they completely skip things like qualifying and discovery. And when salespeople do perform discovery they accept the very first indicator they hear and rush to explain how their product or service addresses that indicator.
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The Recession is Here – How to Take Advantage and Prepare Your Sales Team
- May 31, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
So what must you do to prepare your sales team and how can you leverage the effects of a recession?
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The Philosophy of a Pitching Coach Will Improve Your Sales Team
- April 4, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I find ideas and material for this Blog everywhere, especially when I’m not looking for them. Yesterday I received a daily email from a Paul Reddick, a baseball coach who was drumming up some business for his baseball institute. It resonated – not for its baseball coaching – but as sales coaching. Here’s what it said:
If your coach is talking about any of the pitching flaws that you see listed above…
Run… Run Fast!
That Coach is working on “flaws” that will have no impact on your pitching. He is working on symptoms… not the illness! He is trying to fix things that are happening as a byproduct of incorrect movement early in your delivery. If you get the first second of your delivery right, almost all of these flaws get fixed instantly.
Do you know how this applies to sales?
I’ll explain exactly how it applies and I promise you will be surprised! Click here to read last year’s fun article comparing pitcher’s fielding practice (PFP) to role-playing in sales.
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Has Buying Changed and Has B2B Selling Adapted?
- January 5, 2022
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Today’s buyers are self-educated and salespeople mistake that knowledge for readiness. Salespeople tend to take the path of least resistance and the knowledge they mistake for readiness lulls them into the quote, proposal and order taking mode. As a result, they don’t follow their company’s sales process or worse, the company’s sales process has been modified to reflect buyers being ready. If the buyers were truly ready at this point they would actually buy but the additional options prolong instead of shorten the sales process.
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My Most Popular Sales Article of the Last Ten Years
- December 13, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
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 a timeline.”
There are three important lessons that arise from this:
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Most Salespeople are Underdogs Like the Boston Red Sox
- October 13, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If your company is not the brand leader, market leader, or price leader; if you have a complex sale, a story to tell, a new technology, a new brand, a new product, a much higher price or a much tougher sale, then you are an underdog too.
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Data: The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4200% Better at This
- September 7, 2021
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
My wife and I entered the small jewelry shop and were greeted – not with a warm welcome – but with a matter of fact “my name is…and I’m the owner…and I created everything in the store” which was followed by fifteen minutes of non-stop presentation of everything she created.